H-1B Hubbub
- From: Geoff Davis <gmdavis@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2007 17:06:08 -0000
http://blog.phds.org/2007/6/1/h-1b-hubbub
Immigration policy has been in the news lately, but the talk has been
almost entirely about low-skill workers. Buried in the recent Senate
compromise immigration bill, though, are some provisions that will
affect scientists and engineers.
There hasn't been much talk about the high-skill worker side of the
bill, but what little I have read has been negative. From this past
Sunday's SF Chronicle: "H-1B Federal Immigration Bill... Everyone
agrees it's flawed, but how to fix it?" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/05/27/BUG0RQ1CD51.DTL&type=tech)
ScienceCareers.org asks, "Who Speaks for Early-Career
Scientists?" (http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/
previous_issues/articles/2007_06_01/caredit_a0700077). The Wall
Street Journal reports that even businesses dislike some of the high
tech worker provisions ("Business Divided As Debate Opens On
Immigration" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117980198096110417-
search.html?KEYWORDS=business+divided+as+debate+opens+on
+immigration&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month)).
So just how bad is it? Here's the bill, S. 1348: A bill to provide
for comprehensive immigration reform and for other purposes (http://
www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-1348) (who names these
things?). Keep in mind that this is not the final text by a long shot
- there are already 108 proposed amendments - but it gives a glimpse
of the kinds of changes that are being contemplated.
As best I can tell, the proposed changes will primarily affect those
with bachelors-level S&E degrees. The provisions that most strongly
affect those with advanced degrees were put in place years ago; the
current bill expands them modestly, but for the most part leaves them
qualitatively the same. There is one change, however, that could have
unintended long-term consequences for S&E.
First, some background. There is a quota on H-1B visas (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H1B_visa) that varies from year to year. The
quotas are set when Congress tinkers with immigration legislation,
which is to say infrequently, so it's easy for the levels to get out
of whack with what's going on in the economy. The current number is
65,000 per year, down from 195,000 for fiscal year 2003 (notice that
the reduction didn't come until about 3 years after the dot-com
crash). Now that the tech sector has recovered, visa requests are up
again, and the 2007 quota was reached on the first day of the year.
One thing S. 1348 does is to raise the cap from 65,000 to 115,000. It
also adds a provision that the cap will automatically increase by 20%
the year after the current quota is reached. (I guess this is better
than the 90's approach of making up a series of numbers except for the
fact that it's a one-way ratchet. Much saner would be something based
on wage levels: have the cap rise and fall based on wage levels for
skilled workers - that way recessions would trigger automatic
reductions.)
So how much does changing the cap affect S&E PhDs? Probably not
much. There are already several exemptions that apply to
researchers: First, universities, government labs, and nonprofit
research organizations are not subject to the cap at all, so the quota
is irrelevant in these sectors. Second, as of FY2005 there have been
an additional 20,000 slots for people who hold master's or higher
degrees from a US university. This second quota was just reached this
year (<http://www.immigration.com/newsletter1/h1bmasterreach06.pdf>)
S. 1348 expands the set of organizations not subject to H-1B caps: all
nonprofits would be exempt, not just nonprofit research organizations,
and it exempts those who have "been awarded medical specialty
certification based on post-doctoral training and experience in the
United States." Sure, this will increase the number of PhD H-1Bs, but
because of existing exemptions, it doesn't appear that there have been
any serious limits on those with PhDs in recent years anyway.
The interesting bit is that the bill broadens the advanced degree
exemption to include those with degrees from non-US universities.
Here's why: suppose you are a top-notch Indian or Chinese
undergraduate who wants to move to the US. Getting a master's or PhD
in the US is a great step toward your goal - the degree provides a
stepping stone to an H-1B, which in turn can lead to a green card.
Suppose you get into a really elite local university, say one of the
IITs, but you fare less well in your US admissions process, perhaps
because they have difficulty interpreting your credentials or because
of language skills. So you have to choose between one of the best in-
country universities or a second- (or third-) tier US university for
graduate study. Which do you choose? Currently, if your heart is set
on ending up in the US, H-1B considerations weigh pretty heavily in
favor of the US university. The proposed change, however, removes
that advantage and could reverse the balance. So one consequence of
S. 1348 might be to strengthen the top Chinese and Indian universities
at the expense of lower tier US institutions.
http://blog.phds.org/2007/6/1/h-1b-hubbub
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