I'm not saying he is wrong, and since I'm not from (or in) the USA, I can't really argue. But from my point of view, the author present alot of facts like : "In the last 10 years or so, the number of people forced to work as contractors has increased exponentially." without offering any "hard" data or links to his sources.
Is he using real data as a basis for his arguments?
I feel pretty strongly about this one, and pretty confident in my assessment that more immigration of talented people is good for America. So instead of just commenting here, I took the time to write the author, hoping that I could start a dialogue and maybe understand where he's coming from and show him the other side of the story. Here's what I wrote:
--
Hi Bill,
I read your article about H1-B visas on Info World. I came from Hacker News, a great community where we share and talk about the newest articles in technology. I wanted to share a perspective I've got with you on visas, because maybe I have a bit of a unique one. My first studies before changing majors was in economics, and later I've done work in many countries around the world. In the last few years, I've worked or spent significant time in the United States, Canada, England, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Sweden, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Japan, and Dubai among other places. I'm an American myself, and I've got many American and international friends in lots of industries.
With a bit of background in economics and international business, I've come to think that having as many smart, hard-working people in the United States as possible is good for the country. I'll give you an example: A friend of mine in New York just got her green card. She's got two degrees, speaks fluent Japanese and near-native English, and works in medical devices. She'd been on an H-1B visa before getting her green card.
The USA is clearly better for her being here: She's done great work in the medical community in New York, and - this is another great part - she's actually created wealth and jobs in New York City. She saves a bit of her paycheck - the rest she spends on the things people spend on: Rent and groceries, movies and clothing, the salon and handbags, occasionally a class, public transit and taxis, and everything a standard American gal would spend on. Her work in medical devices has saved lives, people who can go on and be productive, and those people's insurance companies have paid her company for the technology. This means the company can hire more people into R&D, engineering, and support. The people who owe their lives to her can continue working and making money, and spending that money - thus creating new jobs.
I think the biggest potential issue with the H1-B program is that employees are bound to a particular company once hired, but it looks like at least the major companies pay their foreign employees on par with American workers. That means they're not hiring to keep wages down, but instead to get the best people. Great people in technology are able to find jobs quickly - there's a demand for them. But there's also genius-level people with amazing work ethics outside of the States that would love to come here and thrive. We want those people in America.
A final thought: Google co-founder Sergey Brin's parents immigrated to the United States when he was six years old from Russia. Currently, his father is a math professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother is a research scientist at NASA. Those are two jobs - math professor and research scientist - that could've been held by American citizens that instead went to newer immigrants. But how much better is the world because Brin's family worked hard to come here, worked hard in their jobs, raised Sergey well, and he created Google? You might have short term gains in helping people find jobs by locking out talented, hard working immigrats, but what do you give up for the future? I say - Open the doors to the world's best and brightest, and we'l come out with the most propsersity, good jobs, and amazing lives that we can.
It's also very important to note that the terms of the H1B would disallow an "immigrant" from quitting his job and starting a company, because his legal presence in the US is contingent on remaining in the good graces of his employer. The H1B says "we'll allow you to come here to work for Google, but we won't allow you to come here to start a company that competes with Google." That said, it sounds like you don't like this aspect of the H1B visa either - you would probably support a system that preserves more freedom for the guest worker.
Lastly, I think you are using "smart, hard-working people" ambiguously. We don't allow hundreds of thousands of foreign lawyers into the US every year. While health care does award some H1B's, Medicine and Dentistry also act as gatekeepers that ensure Americans who pursue these fields are not replaced en masse with foreign nationals. Of course, real estate agents, mortgage brokers, flight attendants, plumbers, meter maids, and almost every other sector of the economy isn't targeted with a work visa.
Now, there's so much work to do in high tech that we still may get some Americans in the field. But we still create a relative disincentive to Americans when we allow targeted visas in science and engineering. After all, an American who pursues a law degree doesn't have to compete with foreign lawyers for jobs and clients. But an American who pursues a graduate degree in engineering most definitely does. Do we really want to discourage our citizens from engineering degrees and direct them toward law and other non-technical fields?
The answer may actually be "yes." We can get engineers more cheaply from overseas, so we have decided, as a nation, to staff these positions with non us-citizens, and encourage our own citizens to pursue other degree paths and professions. But I think this would be a terrible idea, since a robust, home grown engineering and science profession is crucial to the economic health and security of the United States.
Unfortunately, looks like my comment lost the first half somehow... anywhere, here's what I meant to put first...
First, thanks for addressing this in a reasoned way. The issue gets emotional sometimes.
That said, I disagree with your arguments.
A recent study of the H1B visa showed that the majority of these visas go to Indian outsourcing firms, not American companies looking for top talent. I have no doubt that many talented people come to the US on this visa, and that these people are well paid, but that appears to be less common. Most of the H1Bs are awared to rank and file workers, so I think much more displacement than innovation is going on here. I also think that we could easily create a visa (with full mobility rather than indentured servitude) that we could award in smaller numbers to higly talented foreign nationals.
I strongly object to your use of Sergey Brin as an example of why the H1B is important. Keep in mind that the writer of this article had no problem with engineers and scientists immigrating to America, he was just opposed to a specialized visa created specifically to increase the number of engineers. An engineer who immigrates independently of the visa program (as is the case with Sergey Brin, who grew up in the US and chose to study CS once he was here) would argue for the latter - that we don't need a specialized visa to get these kinds of people here!
(... then continue with the rest of the post, thanks)
Thanks for the reply - After you that the majority of H1-B's are going to Indian outsourcing firms, I took a look at the demographics and stastics to see if that's true. Here's what I found:
India accounts for the most H1-B visas at 102,382 since 2005. The next highest is the United Kingdom at 30,755. That's interesting - India does account for 25% of H1-B's, however the rest of the top 10 is: UK, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Japan, China, Venezuela, South Korea. Six of the top 10 are wealthy countries with high standards of living - the people from those countries are quite likely skilled professionals.
The government should work to clear up and end abuses of the H1-B program to bring unskilled laborers over here, but that's not what the majority of the program is doing. Giving visas not bound to employer would straighten most of that out right away - it would take away the incentive for employers to get crummy people, because they couldn't pay undermarket wages.
As for India - I think the reason India is so highly represented is the same reason Ireland was 150 years ago: It's a poor country with people who want to work hard and make it in America. I think some people (not you) cite the India thing and plays as a sort of latent racist card. "Those damn Indians, taking our jobs!" Why shouldn't Indians come over here? There's some damn brilliant Indians with nothing going on for them in India. The best and brightest want to come here, just liked we've seen whenever there's been a famine or poverty in a country. America's been built by people who came here for a better life.
So okay, only 25% of H1-B's are to Indians, and not all of those (obviously) are outsourcing firms or an abuse of the program. As for the Sergey Brin comment - the author was writing how we should restrict immigration because it costs Americans jobs. My point is if immigration was stricter in the 70's and the Brin family hadn't been allowed to come to the USA, then we'd all be worse off. I say get as many bright and hardworking people here as possible, however we can, and loosen up immigration for anyone who'll be a good citizen in a field there's demand for. I agree with you that we should cut down on unskilled laborers abusing the program, and get better filtering criteria. But I've worked with some amazing Indian coders, and those are people I'd love to have over here to drink tea with, sit on the beach with, talk code and business and Chess, and see them raise their kids to be Americans if they get citizenship, or be grateful for the contributions they made to our economy and way of life if they go home.
You're correct that India accounts for most of the H1B visas, but my comment was actually referring to the companies that bring in H1B workers, not the nationality of the H1B workers themselves. Here's a link to an article on msnbc:
"data for the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, show that 7 of the top 10 applicants for H-1B visas are Indian companies. Giants Infosys Technologies and Wipro took the top two spots, with 22,600 and 19,400 applications, respectively. The company with the third most applications is Cognizant Technology Solutions, which is based in Teaneck, N.J., but has most of its operations in India. All three companies provide services to U.S. companies from India, including technology support and back-office processing."
This article raises the point that H1B visas may actually facilitate and accelerate the trend toward moving jobs offshore. Some people think this is a worthy goal - source the labor where it can be provided most economically. But then we should be honest about it, and agree that our national policy will be to assist foreign corporations in moving development jobs offshore. Then our own young people can take that into consideration, along with our government's decision to protect sectors like law from foreign competition, when choosing a graduate degree and career.
I also disagree with you that the writer of the article is opposed to immigration, and he definitely makes a strong case against the claim of "playing a race card". Here's the quote from his article:
"What's more, the H-1B issue is separate from the debate concerning an overhaul of sadly confused and outdated immigration framework as a whole. Friedman's hardworking Indian immigrants would still have an opportunity to come to the United States and make their contributions as citizens-to-be if H-1B were suspended, using the regular immigration framework."
So this writer is clearly not opposed to Indians (among others) immigrating to the US.
The question is: should there be a special visa program designed specifically to bring more engineers to the United States than we'd get through the normal process of immigration?
It's a reasonable question, but it really is separate from the more general question of whether people should be allowed to pursue a better life through immigration to the US, or even whether we should try to bring more "educated people" here in a general sense.
The H1B is used specifically to increase the number of engineers, and it seems pretty obvious to me that if you do that to engineering but not to other fields, you'll deter young Americans from entering engineering relative to other fields that are not targeted by work visas.
I need to correct a statement I made here. I wrote that India accounts for most of the H1B visas. What I meant to write is that the nation that receives the most H1B visas is India. However this is a plurality of the H1B total, not a majority as I implied earlier.
"I think the biggest potential issue with the H1-B program is that employees are bound to a particular company once hired, but it looks like at least the major companies pay their foreign employees on par with American workers. That means they're not hiring to keep wages down, but instead to get the best people."
Uh, if the second statement were true, then the first condition would not be necessary
"Tell the president, your senators, and your representatives that reform -- meaning a reduction or suspension now, and a more rational approach to avoiding their use to lower wages in the future -- of H-1B can no longer wait. Our jobs depend on it."
Is anyone going to buy into this garbage?
There is an infinite amount of work that can be done. The world is in no danger of running out of work, jobs, or good jobs. The United States is much stronger because many of the most talented people want to come work here. And here's the big thing the author misses with his rah-rah-keep-our-jobs sentiment: Additional workers in an economy create NEW jobs.
Simple example: Town of 100. 10 new people move into the town. Population now 110. They create additional demand for food, housing, entertainment, and other services. So the restaurants hire 10% more cooks and waitresses, the builder hires 10% more construction workers, and the bars hire 10% more bartenders. There's more openings for plumbers, maintenance men, and new businesses. Since there's more demand for people, businesses pay a bit more for them - now these people have money. Some of their money they spend on computing/technology - which creates more money for R&D, engineering, design, coding, etc.
Trying to limit highly skilled people from coming into your country is a really, really dumb idea. If some percent of the H-1 program is being used to get unskilled workers over to the USA, refine that. But I'll tell you - a good friend of mine just got her green card after working in medical devices on an H1-1B for years here in the USA. She speaks fluent Japanese and near-native English and has made a positive difference in New York City's medical community. Then she spends money eating out, on fashion and handbags and salons, on books and movies and DVDs and Broadway, and all sorts of other great things. She makes her $60,000 per year or whatever, and spends $55,000 back into the American economy, creating jobs for people across all social classes. Those people then have more money to spend in all sorts of sectors - including technology.
I am for more immigration. My father was immigrant to the US. The H1b program is slanted against both immigrants and the native programmers. Against the first by making them depend on a particular company and against the second by making them compete against the first. Let programmers immigrate to the US based only on their skills and then let them both compete for jobs and let the companies compete for their skills.
I'm glad Sergey's father and mother were allowed to immigrate to the USA. However, it's too bad that his Russian parents have stolen good jobs while there's unemployed Americans:
"His father is a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland, and his mother is a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center."
I mean, there's unemployed mathematicians and research scientists right here in the USA, right? Why should these Russians be allowed to come in and take our jobs?
...I want as many intelligent, hard working people as I can find in a company I run, and in a country that I want to see grow. Take a look at that Wikipedia link at what a nightmare is what for the Brin family in Russia - thank goodness we didn't have shortsighted people trying to lock them out to "preserve the jobs here", or who knows how many fewer great jobs would've been created, and how much less useful and easy to navigate the internet would be.
Is he using real data as a basis for his arguments?