The brain that drain before the rain in the plain of Spain. Re: H-1B Visas
- From: rst0wxyz <rst0wxyz@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Apr 2007 08:30:09 -0700
On Apr 29, 7:37 am, PaPaPeng <PaPaP...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Silicon Valley
Deportation order
Apr 26th 2007 | SAN FRANCISCO
From The Economist print editionhttp://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9090288
A place that loves globalisation hates a benighted "visa raj"
SILICON VALLEY, as the old joke goes, was built on ICs-Indians and
Chinese that is, not integrated circuits. As of the last decennial
census, in 2000, more than half of all the engineers in the valley
were foreign-born, and about half of those were either Indian or
Chinese-and since 2000 the ratio of Indians and Chinese is reckoned to
have gone up steeply. Understandably, therefore Silicon Valley has
strong views on America's visa regime.
The latest reminder of the power of the "quota raj", as Indians like
to call it, came on April 2nd, the day the Citizenship and Immigration
Services began receiving applications from employers for this year's
batch of H-1B visas, a special class of visa that allows highly
qualified foreigners such as software programmers to work in America
for up to six years. The number of these is currently capped at 65,000
a year, well down from 195,000 a year in 2003.
Within hours, 150,000 applications flooded in and the government
picked the winners by computerised lottery. An additional tranche of
20,000 H-1Bs for graduates from American universities will run out
very soon. As the Harvard Crimson, the university's daily paper, puts
it, many of the foreigners in its class of 2007 have received their
"deportation orders".
A lot of this has to do with a political backlash against Indian and
other foreign scientists caused by offshoring, the practice of farming
out technology operations to firms in places such as India-"exporting
jobs" in populist jargon. But the quota actually mostly hurts American
firms. "There is a skills shortage in Silicon Valley," says M.R.
Rangaswami, who migrated from Chennai (then Madras) in 1976 and now
runs the Sand Hill Group, a firm in the valley that advises software
companies. Bill Gates told a Senate panel in March that the H-1B quota
was endangering America's future and should be abolished.
Senator Edward Kennedy asked Mr Gates whether this might cause a brain
drain in poor countries. AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the
University of California at Berkeley and author of "The New
Argonauts", a book on the subject, argues that the exact opposite is
the case. It might be called brain circulation.
Immigrants, she maintains, tend not to leave a place altogether. They
form networks that, in effect, make Silicon Valley the head office and
their home countries the branch offices. That's what the Taiwanese and
Israelis who came to Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 1980s did, and
the Indians and Chinese followed the same pattern.
Thus the Taiwanese built Hsinchu, near Taipei, into a "silicon
sibling" for manufacturing gadgets dreamed up in California; the
Israelis, with ties to their army, built a transnational
security-software industry; and the Chinese and Indians are now
turning Shanghai and Bangalore into new silicon siblings in,
respectively, microchips and software.
As a result, the typical start-up firm in Silicon Valley today is a
global multinational from its day of incorporation, with entrepreneurs
travelling back and forth, hiring talent inside and outside the United
States and transferring technology, capital and chutzpah in both
directions. Take Prem Uppaluru, who graduated from the Bombay branch
of the elite Indian Institute of Technology in 1975. Some 30% of his
class came to Silicon Valley and all have founded technology
companies; Mr Uppaluru is currently on his fourth, and has just hired
35 people in Silicon Valley and 25 in Bangalore.
More of these immigrant entrepreneurs are now returning home, but
without giving up on Silicon Valley, says Sridar Iyengar, a former
president of the Indus Entrepreneurs, a predominantly Indian network.
He himself moved back to India in 1997 but keeps his home in Silicon
Valley and his green card.
All this could change for the next generation of talented Indians and
Chinese, says Mr Iyengar, who is 60. His generation typically came
with an H-1B visa, then got a green card and eventually citizenship.
Now, getting just the first is much harder. At the same time, the
quality of life and opportunity at home in India or China has improved
spectacularly. Increasingly, Mr Iyengar, who is an adviser to and
investor in several Indian start-ups, is advising young Indians to
stay at home.
Yes, stay home. Very good advise. Build up your own country instead
of enjoying the luxury of America.
.
- References:
- H-1B Visas
- From: PaPaPeng
- H-1B Visas
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