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American Immigration Law Association (AILA) recently published an article that analyzed the proposed changes to H-1B policies due to the immigration reform.
In the past few years, many people pointed out that the U.S. global competitiveness depends on our ability to attract and retain global talents. This naturally includes international students who have been educated in the U.S. According to a report by Deloitte University Press published this month, these students and global talents are being outsourced by other countries. As indicated in this report, in 2010, the U.S. was ranked eighth in percentage of highly educated individuals among foreign born populations. Those that are above us include Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia. If we want to maintain our status in the global perspective, then we should do everything we can to keep talented, innovative people because they are the basis of our economic success.
Many people who work in the U.S. have H-1B visa. On many fronts, this particular population’s skills help strengthen the U.S. economy. Though the Senator’s immigration reform bill S.744 promises to increase the H-1B cap, but some restrictions could eventually make this increase ineffective and will not be enable us to retain the talents we desperately need. For example, an amended required wage unrealistically elevates the salary levels of entry level American graduates. This would create an inflated rather than prevailing wage and will put a lot of burden upon U.S. employers because they would have to pay foreign talents a lot more than U.S. talents. Another proposed change is a recruitment procedure by the Department of Labor which adds many burdensome processes to the H-1B application.
H-1B visa is seen as a program that takes jobs from U.S. workers in some industries. This is not the case at all. The truth is that foreign talents, especially those educated in our country’s graduate programs, only enhance the job prospects of Americans. According to an October 2012 report by the Kaufman Foundation, twenty four percent of engineering and technology companies founded between 2006 and 2012 has at least one foreign born founder. This figure rises to 43.9% if taken from Silicon Valley. In 2012, these companies were responsible for about 560,000 jobs and $63 billion in sales.
In reality, if we want to stay competitive in the global economy, then we need to facilitate rather than inhibit those foreign talents who want to stay to work in the U.S. We desperately need a comprehensive immigration reform that would provide a path to legal status for the 11 million illegal immigrants, protects our borders, and provide a reasonable temporary worker program for less skilled workers. But it would be a tragedy if this package created unworkable and unnecessary burdens on the ability of the U.S. to provide visas to essential global talents.
The immigration reform bill is still in the process of deliberations and debates. Our law firm is paying close attention to the changes and is participating in every step of the way. If there are positive changes, then we will get our support across to both the House and Senate congressmen. However, if the changes are not favorable, we will oppose it as well. Let’s hope that this time’s reform will provide legal immigrants with a faster and more efficient path to their immigrant statuses.
FYZ Law Group LLP provides full range immigration legal services to education/research institutions, the private sector, and to individuals and families. Our lawyers have over 30 years of U.S. immigration services. We specialize in non-immigrant employment based visa and in science and technology visa immigrations such as: EB-1A, EB-1B, EB-1C, NIW, PERM, H-1B, L-1, and O-1. We have offices in San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, and New York. Website: http://www.fyzlaw.com Email: @fyzlaw.com">info@fyzlaw.com Tel: 650-312-8668 (CA); 630-577-9060 (IL); 656-288-7129 (NY).
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