Let's Keep Skilled Immigrants in the U.S.
Vivek Wadhwa
www.businessweek.com
Feb 12, 2007
Here's a story about an immigrant realizing the American Dream—well, almost. In 1996, Denis Kholodar won first prize in a national engineering contest in Russia and came to the U.S. to complete a PhD in aerospace engineering. His professor and adviser at Duke University, Earl Dowell, who describes Kholodar as one of the brightest students he has ever worked with, took him under his wing. Together, they pioneered new techniques in aerodynamic modeling to reduce wing flutter in jet aircraft.
After earning his PhD, Kholodar landed a fellowship with the U.S. Air Force. For eight years, he didn't leave the U.S. out of fear of not being able to re-enter—he says re-entry background checks on Russian scientists can take as long as six months. Though Kholodar wanted to remain in the U.S. and make it his home, he had to leave when his visa expired last year. His trajectory illustrates one of the problems being overlooked in the immigration debate—the U.S.is losing out on the formidable contributions of legal, skilled immigrants.
Executives of companies like Boeing (BA) and Lockheed Martin (LMT) often raise the alarm about their aging workforce and the shortage of engineers (see BusinessWeek.com, 7/10/06, "Engineering Gap? Fact and Fiction"). Yet Kholodar says both companies wouldn't interview him when he applied for a job because he wasn't a permanent resident. (Both declined to comment.) Kholodar points out that hiring a nonresident requires extensive paperwork. And the U.S. Air Force couldn't hire him because he wasn't a citizen.
Global Edge The easiest path Kholodar saw to citizenship was to marry an American, but he couldn't bring himself to wed someone he didn't love. So he looked outside the U.S., and Canadian jet manufacturer Bombardier readily snapped him up. Professor Dowell, who just won a prize known as the Nobel of the aerospace industry from the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics for his research, says America's loss ended up being Canada's gain.
In a previous column, I wrote about research completed by my students that shows skilled immigrants give the U.S. a greater global edge (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/3/07, "Open Doors Wider for Skilled Immigrants"). They contribute to the economy, create jobs, and lead innovation. Immigrants are fueling the creation of high-tech businesses across our nation and creating a wealth of intellectual property.
Our research received extensive media coverage because it was one of the first studies to quantify the contribution of legal, skilled immigrants at the national level. Most commentators agreed that bringing in the best and brightest from all over the world is good for the U.S.
Laying Roots Unfortunately, some commentators used our research as fodder to recommend lifting the caps on a work-visa category called the H-1B. They missed the point. Our research didn't advocate lifting the H-1B caps—it highlighted the benefits of a workforce that's entrepreneurial and well educated in math and science, common qualities in skilled immigrants who start engineering and technology companies (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/6/07, "The Impact of Immigrant Entrepreneurs").
What I have said repeatedly is that we want to attract the world's best and brightest and bring them to stay permanently. H-1Bs are temporary work visas with a six-year time limit and that impose many restrictions. H-1B holders can only work for their sponsoring employers—they can't start new businesses. Their spouses aren't even allowed to work or obtain Social Security numbers—which are usually needed for things like drivers licenses and bank accounts. Thus, it's pretty hard to lay deep roots.
Our research showed that the percentage of foreign nationals contributing to U.S. international patent applications—the ones that give us a global edge—increased 331% in eight years. This is a welcome contribution to U.S. intellectual property. The problem is that many of the engineers and scientists filing these patents, like Kholodar, may have to leave the country—and take their knowledge and experience with them. In 2006, one in four U.S. international patent applications had foreign national authors or co-authors. The increases correspond to the increasing numbers of foreign students here on visas that expire shortly after graduation and H-1B-holding workers in the U.S.
Peculiar Quotas Immigration data show another brewing problem. The current wait time for skilled immigrants from India and China to be granted permanent residence stands at nearly six years. In other words, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services is backlogged, currently processing applications for those who applied for permanent residence in 2001. Additionally, there's a yearly limit of around 140,000 employment-based permanent-resident visas for skilled workers. And to further complicate things, no more than 7% of the visas are allowed to be allocated to immigrants from any one country.
Immigration attorney Murali Bashyam of lawfirm Bashyam & Spiro explains that the per-country limitation serves to avoid monopolization of visa numbers by applicants from any one country. Under current law, no more than 9,800 permanent resident visas can be issued to employment-based immigrants (including their spouses and children) from any single country.
