The European Union's new proposal aimed at fast-tracking the immigration process for workers in "highly skilled" is making some U.S. technology heavyweights nervous.
It's no secret that American tech firms prize vast quantities of H-1B temporary visas and permanent residency permits, otherwise known as green cards. The companies argue that these tools are necessary to bring in foreigners for positions they claim suffer from shortages of qualified Americans, particularly the foreign nationals who represent the majority of masters and Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities in relevant technical fields.
Flag of the EU
Now they're concerned that unless Congress acts fast to increase the cap on those rapidly grabbed prizes, they'll soon lose out on foreign talent to EU countries.
The EU's proposal would provide a "fast-track" immigration program known as the "blue card"--a sort of green card competitor, offering card holders all EU social benefits--which will bring 20 million additional workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America over the next 20 years, according to various news reports. The plan's drafters hope to award workers the cards within one month to three months--a far cry from U.S. green cards, whose processing time averages 5 to 10 years.
"Europe has laid down a challenge to the United States Congress," Ralph Hellman, a lobbyist for the Information Technology Industry Council, said in a statement. "The EU will attract the best and brightest workers in the world if the United States continues to create new burdens to hiring these valuable workers."
ITI's members include Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Cisco Systems, IBM and Intel.
American tech companies may not have anything to get worked up yet, though. The EU has been considering such a move since 1999, and even now, the plan still must be ratified by all 27 member states, which would then set "quotas" based on their worker needs. It reportedly faces resistance from some major members, including the United Kingdom and Germany.
Meanwhile, proponents of increased U.S. visa quotas are also fuming this week over the U.S. Senate's approval of an amendment that increases by $3,500 the filing fees for employers seeking H-1B visas, which allow foreigners with at least a bachelor's degree in their area of specialty to work in the United States for up to six years. That bill must still be reconciled with a House of Representatives version, however, so that section may not survive in the end.
"Europe has sent a message. They are aggressively pursuing the professional talent they need to compete on the global stage," said Robert Hoffman, Oracle's vice president for governmental affairs and co-chairman of Compete America, a coalition of technology companies and pro-business groups. "The Senate has unfortunately also sent a message, and it doesn't bode well for the U.S. economy."
Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:53 a.m. PDT to clarify a description of IEEE-USA.
High-tech companies and groups representing American engineers are famous for clashing over whether it's a good idea to allow U.S. companies to hire more foreign workers on temporary H-1B visas.
But what's sometimes forgotten in the debate is a key point of agreement among at least some representatives of the warring sides. A new joint letter (click for PDF) to Congress from the Semiconductor Industry Association and IEEE-USA, the U.S. branch of the world's largest professional society of electronics engineers, seeks to remind politicos of that common ground, which is this: we need more green cards.
A massive immigration bill may have fallen flat over unrelated points of contention earlier this year, but the groups' leaders suggested Congress still has time to salvage green-card changes. Their wishlist goes something like this:
* Raise the cap for employer-sponsored green cards.
* Exempt from that quota are any foreigners who receive advanced degrees in math, science, engineering and technology fields from U.S. universities.
* Create a new foreign student visa category that allows foreigners who hold bachelor's or higher degrees in those fields and have a job offer in hand to go directly from a student visa to a green card.
* Oh, and while you're at it, exempt spouses and children of those green-card holders from the cap, too.
(The position isn't exactly new: SIA President George Scalise has long advocated issuing green cards to gifted students, and IEEE-USA has argued expanding the permanent immigration program is a more sustainable way of retaining a robust high-tech work force than the temporary H-1B technique.)
Right now, 51 percent of master's and 71 percent of Ph.D. graduates in electrical and electronic engineering from U.S. universities are foreign nationals, but the average green card applicant has to wait 5 to 10 years to gain permanent residency status, the letter argued. In the view of SIA and IEEE-USA, that's too long to wait if American companies want to remain globally competitive in science and tech fields, so foreign graduates in those realms should get special treatment.
Green cards offer more privileges--including the right to change jobs and become a naturalized U.S. citizen--than the "non-immigrant" H-1B visa, which can be renewed for up to six years but, as critics charge, makes visa holders "indentured servants" to the employers who hire them. The IEEE-USA has argued in the past that because of those key differences, green cards are less prone to abuse.
That view, however, is not universally shared. The Programmers Guild, a group that represents American computer programmers and has been especially hostile to H-1B increases, argues the changes sought by IEEE-USA, SIA and their ilk would be a green light for firms to hire foreigners instead of qualified Americans.
The proposal to create a new visa category to fast-track students into permanent resident status is also troublesome, said Kim Berry, the group's president. "These proposals would crowd American students out of U.S. universities as even getting (a) B.S. degree would be a virtual guaranteed path to U.S. citizenship," he said in an e-mail interview.
Here's one more reason to give green cards to foreign graduate students.
They are the only ones in school.
U.S. citizens outnumber foreign nationals in undergraduate electrical engineering programs in U.S. universities by a wide margin, according to a report form the Engineering Workforce Commission of the American Association of Engineering Societies.
U.S. kids accounted for 89 percent of the undergrads in these programs in 2006.
But 51 percent of the students in masters programs in EE in U.S. universities were foreign nationals last year. Only 49 percent come from the states.
In PhD programs, foreign nationals made up 71 percent of the students in 2006.
On one level, you could argue that foreign nationals are taking spots that otherwise could have gone to U.S. citizens. But the drop off from undergrad indicates that 1) U.S. students aren't interested in graduate school or 2) aren't doing as well and can't get in. Either way, if the foreign nationals can get permanent residence, there's a better chance they might stay here after graduation.
Tech lobbying groups are trying to make it easier for foreign nationals to get visas.
- prev
- 1
- next
