In recent days, the Prime Minister of Ireland, Enda Kenny, addressed the topic of immigration before President Trump and noted that “there are millions out there who want to play their part for America — if you like, who want to make America great.” While President Trump welcomed these remarks by the Prime Minister, it’s troubling to see anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies reaching new heights in Washington and around the country.
For instance, the H-1B program that allows temporary foreign workers to fill the skills gap in critical sectors such as STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) has recently been demonized by anti-immigrant groups. In addition to the horrific hostility felt by many foreign-born workers as of late, it’s sad to see respected news outlets pushing anti-immigrant stories.
Some of these stories have chronicled anger and grief felt by American workers who have lost their jobs to these highly skilled workers, claiming that companies take advantage of strict U.S. immigration law to hire less expensive foreign workers. While such isolated incidents are indeed unfortunate, giving too much credence to their stories without paying proper attention to the overwhelming benefits of the H-1B visa program is one-sided and irresponsible.
For the uninitiated, H-1B visas are temporary work visas for highly skilled immigrants, and are predominantly used in STEM fields. Many U.S. companies rely on the visas for critical jobs in these industries because our domestic workforce simply does not have enough qualified talent to fill open positions.
Too often stories cite anecdotal experiences from individuals with a clear—and arguably rightful—bias against the program without acknowledging the wealth of evidence that objectively proves the program’s benefits to America’s global competitiveness and economic prosperity.
That is irresponsible. The public should expect reporters covering the H-1B visa program to give an unbiased look at the issue, and have them grant fair attention to how the skills gap hurts American companies and the role high-skilled immigrants play in creating jobs for U.S. workers.
Notably, 70 percent of full-time graduate students enrolled in either electrical engineering or computer science programs in the United States are international students. Additionally, the fact that employers request H-1B visa workers for STEM jobs that go unfilled longer than other roles is often ignored as well, but illustrates the lack of qualified candidates.
While the United States should continue prioritizing our education system as part of a long-term, comprehensive solution to addressing our domestic workforce’s shortcomings, we must accept that high-skilled immigrants are needed to support our economic growth in the present.
Considering this reality, the H-1B visa cap that brings in these vital high-skilled workers is in fact alarmingly low. Last year, the 233,000 H-1B visa requests far surpassed the cap of 65,000, which is routinely reached within hours of the application’s opening. This bars thousands of qualified, often U.S.-educated professionals, from helping to address the shortfalls of our own economy and educational system.
McKinsey & Co. estimates that 1.5 million jobs will go unfilled by 2020 as a result of the skills gap.
Not only do H-1B visa workers help fill unmet demand for skilled labor, but research shows that they actually create jobs for American workers.
A 2011 study co-sponsored by the Partnership for a New American Economy found that each immigrant with an advanced STEM degree from a U.S. university actually helped create another 2.62 jobs.
Moreover, despite representing only a small fraction of our population, skilled immigrants are responsible for founding half of all startups valued at a billion dollars in the U.S. This too creates jobs for Americans, as research reveals that an average of about 760 employees are created per immigrant-founded company.
Professor Matthew Slaughter, Dean of Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, recently wrote about the real, tangible cost to the U.S. economy of allocating fewer skilled-immigrant visas than companies need, noting that the U.S. ranked 9th out of 10 competitor countries based on best immigration policies to promote economic growth.
While it is easy to sympathize with individuals who have lost their jobs, it would be negligent to consider those circumstances in isolation. The reality of the situation is that America depends on H-1B visa holders to drive innovation and serve our country in meaningful professions as doctors, scientists, and entrepreneurs.
Reporters are not wrong for calling attention to potential abuses of the H-1B visa program. They are wrong, however, for misleading their audiences with the belief that this valuable high-skilled temporary worker program is uniformly damaging to American workers.
Bill Richardson is the former governor of New Mexico and current co-chair of the American Competitiveness Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing the United States' economic competitiveness in the global market.