05-15-2006, 06:44 AM
Monday, May 15, 2006 E-Mail this article to a friend Printer Friendly Version
âKeep foreigners outâ: How the policy puts US on losing end
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: âToday, the xenophobes and the protectionists have taken over. In the aftermath of 9/11, with the same analytic sophistication that identified WMDs as a great threat, Congress slashed the number of H1-B visas from more than 200,000 a year to 65,000. American businesses consumed all of the available visas two months before the beginning of this fiscal year,â an opinion piece published in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday read.
The piece by Matin H Singer recalls that the United States used to welcome workers with special skills. H1-B visas that permitted highly trained foreign workers to fill engineering and computer science positions used to be issued easily and J-1 visas allowed architectural and other firms to bring over interns on exchange programmes. âIt was a no-cost import. It was as if other countries were willingly filling up our strategic oil reserves. Scientists, who someone else paid to educate and train, were clamouring to work and settle in our country and help our companies compete in a global marketplace,â he adds.
Singer writes that on one side of the âcongressional aisle,â it is declared that Americans must know the whereabouts of all foreigners. Such congressional leaders ignore the requirement of H1-B visa holders to work for a sponsoring firm, but on the other side of the aisle, it is said that immigrants take âAmericanâ jobs. âNo one has ever offered one iota of credible evidence that US graduates with engineering, software or other degrees have lost jobs to H1-B visa holders,â he points out. According to him, there is evidence today that the xenophobic climate in the United States, coupled with improved opportunity in their county of origin, have motivated some technologists to leave the United States and go home. Other English-speaking countries, such as Australia and South Africa, have established stronger engineering programmes at their universities so that they can train and keep the students that used to welcome to America.
Singer argues that as the US government increases its hostility to foreigners and denies American businesses access to necessary resources, technology companies exercise the other option before them, namely outsourcing. He writes, âThe politicians who puff up their chests and represent themselves as protectors of the American worker are doing nothing more than accelerating the tsunami of jobs going overseas. The panderers, who would use 9/11 to advance an anti-foreigner agenda in the name of national security, make us less secure by stripping the United States of valuable human resources. Have they forgotten the role of foreign-born scientists in our development of defence technologies? Would they have sent Albert Einstein back home? Not allowed Andy Grove to stay and build Intel? We should be talking about solutions. We should address the crisis of US competitiveness at home and abroad.â
Singer recommends that the US should staple a green card to every foreign-born student who completes a college-level programme in engineering. âWe want those human resources to stay in this country, help us build and support our businesses and raise families,â he concludes.
âKeep foreigners outâ: How the policy puts US on losing end
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: âToday, the xenophobes and the protectionists have taken over. In the aftermath of 9/11, with the same analytic sophistication that identified WMDs as a great threat, Congress slashed the number of H1-B visas from more than 200,000 a year to 65,000. American businesses consumed all of the available visas two months before the beginning of this fiscal year,â an opinion piece published in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday read.
The piece by Matin H Singer recalls that the United States used to welcome workers with special skills. H1-B visas that permitted highly trained foreign workers to fill engineering and computer science positions used to be issued easily and J-1 visas allowed architectural and other firms to bring over interns on exchange programmes. âIt was a no-cost import. It was as if other countries were willingly filling up our strategic oil reserves. Scientists, who someone else paid to educate and train, were clamouring to work and settle in our country and help our companies compete in a global marketplace,â he adds.
Singer writes that on one side of the âcongressional aisle,â it is declared that Americans must know the whereabouts of all foreigners. Such congressional leaders ignore the requirement of H1-B visa holders to work for a sponsoring firm, but on the other side of the aisle, it is said that immigrants take âAmericanâ jobs. âNo one has ever offered one iota of credible evidence that US graduates with engineering, software or other degrees have lost jobs to H1-B visa holders,â he points out. According to him, there is evidence today that the xenophobic climate in the United States, coupled with improved opportunity in their county of origin, have motivated some technologists to leave the United States and go home. Other English-speaking countries, such as Australia and South Africa, have established stronger engineering programmes at their universities so that they can train and keep the students that used to welcome to America.
Singer argues that as the US government increases its hostility to foreigners and denies American businesses access to necessary resources, technology companies exercise the other option before them, namely outsourcing. He writes, âThe politicians who puff up their chests and represent themselves as protectors of the American worker are doing nothing more than accelerating the tsunami of jobs going overseas. The panderers, who would use 9/11 to advance an anti-foreigner agenda in the name of national security, make us less secure by stripping the United States of valuable human resources. Have they forgotten the role of foreign-born scientists in our development of defence technologies? Would they have sent Albert Einstein back home? Not allowed Andy Grove to stay and build Intel? We should be talking about solutions. We should address the crisis of US competitiveness at home and abroad.â
Singer recommends that the US should staple a green card to every foreign-born student who completes a college-level programme in engineering. âWe want those human resources to stay in this country, help us build and support our businesses and raise families,â he concludes.