[My note: this article is about HR 3012, a bill to make it much easier for Indian and Chinese temporary guest workers to get green cards and stay here in jobs they were given in preference to American workers, http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3012:# If this doesn't sound good to you, better contact your representatives fast, as this bill is the outcome of 6 years of stealth lobbying and is being fast-tracked right now. There is also a poll at this article]

Is it time for the U.S. to make it easier for highly skilled foreign nationals -- high-level engineers, medical specialists, research scientists, specialized academics -- to enter the United States for employment? Rep. Jason Chaffetz thinks so. He is a co-sponsor of the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act (HR 3012), which would eliminate the current numerical limitation by country (different countries have different limits) and adjust the limits on family visas without increasing the total number of available visas.

The numerical caps by country mean that an American business that needs a particular worker may not be able to make the hire.

"The current percentage cap has created a backlog of qualified workers," Chaffetz said. "American companies view all highly skilled immigrants as the same regardless of where they are from, and our immigration policy should do the same."

This is a good idea, and long overdue. The per-nation caps on immigration are relics of a bygone era when most people worked on farms or in assembly-line factories. High-level skills were of less importance because it was mainly the Americans who had them.

That is no longer the case. The assumption of the technical superiority of the American worker is long gone. To continue to thrive, American businesses need to tap an outside pool. Government needs to get out of their way.

Today Americans are more appreciative of different cultures, and better understand how immigrants' abilities and personal characteristics contribute to the nation's well-being. Our laws should mesh with this more enlightened perspective.

This is especially true of people who have studied here and would like to pursue their dreams as entrepreneurs. They have benefitted from our universities and from working at American companies. They want to take what they have learned here not only to enhance existing companies but to make new enterprises blossom, which would in turn drive the economy.

We could use the help.

But the current laws make highly qualified immigrants and the American companies that want to hire them jump through excessive hoops. This is ...well ... crazy.

Some hotheads might say: Send 'em back where they came from. But think about it. These are able people. If they return to their home countries, they'll be productive workers or business owners there, and their enterprises will challenge U.S.-based businesses. The smart move is to embrace them and bolster growth in the U.S.A.

Chaffetz's bill is welcome. Too bad it doesn't go far enough. Bigger steps are needed, but the political barriers are daunting.

First of all, there should be fewer obstacles to an American company's hiring an outsider of its choice for any skilled work, not just highly skilled work. Obviously computer programmers or research scientists have rare talents. But there are plenty of other fields that may not have the same glamour but which require definite skills far above menial labor. Such workers make big contributions to society, and the U.S. needs them, too.

Second, current law imposes way too much red tape on the hiring process. The essence of the free market is that people are the best judges of what is best for them, and their cumulative decisions are the best for country as a whole. The huge snarl of current government rules only impedes the American economy, hurting us all.

Managers and owners are only going to hire people who produce. They don't need bureaucrats telling them who those employees should be. Skilled foreigners already in the country who want to start a business here should be given a red carpet, not red tape.

When the best people are hired, from wherever they may come, business succeeds. And when business succeeds, America succeeds. There are more jobs and a healthier economy. The benefits flow to all workers, whether they immigrated last year or their ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

The ultimate answer to the immigration of skilled workers is to trust American business and cut federal interference to a minimum. A prevailing wage standard is important to ensure that employers don't abuse the system and import cheap labor at the expense of American labor. But that's about the only thing government needs to monitor.

It should get out of the way. It should expedite the visas of whomever a business wants to hire. It should automatically approve work visas upon application by a bona fide company.

Even those advances would fall short of the reforms needed to solve the wider immigration quandary. Given the emotions raised by the issue, we expect the final solution will be some time off. In the meantime, HR 3012 would be a small step in the right direction.

http://www.heraldextra.com/news/opinion ... z1b7V8R0vv