Thread: Cornyn urges more immigration

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/15415940.htm

Posted on Fri, Sep. 01, 2006

Cornyn urges more immigration

By PATRICK McGEE
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

RICHARDSON -- The United States needs to admit far more highly skilled immigrants to stay competitive economically, according to experts at a hearing hosted by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn.

Letting in more qualified immigrants will help the country combat huge personnel shortages in high tech, engineering, nursing and other fields, said Cornyn, R-Texas, and the five witnesses who testified before him Thursday at the University of Texas at Dallas.

"By all accounts, our immigration laws and policy place our country at a competitive disadvantage," Cornyn said. "We stand in danger of moving backwards because other countries are beginning to compete with us in our own game."

Cornyn is chairman of the Senate's Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship Subcommittee. He was the only congressional member at Thursday's hearing.

Cornyn has proposed legislation that would increase the number of visas from the current 65,000 a year to 115,000 a year for people with jobs waiting in the United States. Cornyn's bill would base future increases on the job market's demands.

His proposal was part of the immigration bill the Senate passed in May. But the bill is at odds with a bill passed by the House that would make illegal immigrants felons.

Bo Cooper, general counsel for the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1999 to 2003, testified that admitting more highly skilled workers would bring the country's immigration policy in line with its economic goals.

Other witnesses said countries such as Australia and Singapore are taking advantage of America's immigration restrictions by attracting more highly skilled immigrants.

Lance Kaplan, with the Washington, D.C.-based American Council on International Personnel, testified that 70 percent of legal permanent residents are highly skilled in Australia, compared with 16 percent of legal permanent residents in the United States.


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Patrick McGee, 817-685-3806 pmcgee@star-telegram.com

Lance Kaplan, with the Washington, D.C.-based American Council on International Personnel, testified that 70 percent of legal permanent residents are highly skilled in Australia, compared with 16 percent of legal permanent residents in the United States.

Having an Australian sister-in-law, and knowing a little about how Australia handles immigration/emigration/ entry-exit requirements, etc. ... let me add a small reality-check here.

The Australians use a rather extensive and objective 'point system'. All applicants for entry are rated on background, education, abilities, etc. which render a score which is indicative of how much an asset the person considered to be to the country. Here, although our 'system' attempts to do something kinda sorta similar, the reality is, we tolerate and 'accept' people of widely-varying backgrounds - for many practical and altruistic intentions. Is the Australian system perfect? No - I do realize it too has faults. However, the Australian system is much more stringent, restrictive and rigorously enforced. Ours?

I see 2 different angles at issue here:
1. Is the article encouraging a greater overall number of legal immigrants/residents to render a greater number of high-skilled people?
('just give us more bodies' - the quantity argument)

OR

2. Is the argument for a system more similar to countries such as Australia's? (weeding 'entrants' to ensure those accepted are high-skilled, and not accepting many low or unskilled)
('just give us more highly skilled bodies' - the quality argument)

Hint: You can get the same number of high-skilled immigrant workers by either screening a lot people (of various backgrounds), or by just properly seeking out the highly-skilled smaller sub-group. No wonder we have a system which is geologic in its efficiency, has huge backlogs of entrants, and appears to be chronically dysfunctional. The rules are complex, the judgements appear subjective, as we appear to want to consider just about anyone from just about any place.

Even with it's shortcomings, I'll opt for the Australian system - any day.


Also, a couple other tidbits on the subject:

* According to the last IEEE report on the subject of IT/High-Tech/Software Engineers and unemployment...as I have stated before, the IEEE has estimated in the past that any given point in time, there are approx. 800,000-900,000 unemployed 'engineers' in the US. Yet, companies are clamoring for more? Hmmmmm... what we're being told and the reality might not be one-in-the-same (just MHO). OK, what gives here?

* Gee, what has happened to Cornyn? At one point, I almost thought he was our 'friend' - now, I don't think so.

Cornyn has proposed legislation that would increase the number of visas from the current 65,000 a year to 115,000 a year for people with jobs waiting in the United States. Cornyn's bill would base future increases on the job market's demands.

The only way I could support such a bill, is if there was a minimum salary requirement for those jobs that they wanted to fill through immigration. That salary would have to be at or slightly above the national average for that job. Otherwise, the employers will just be shopping our jobs for the lowest wages possible. We all know that foreign laborers, even skilled, technical people will accept a very low wage for the opportunity to immigrate to America.

All of our Texas ALIPAC members need to ride Cornyn on this issue.

How is this for a novel idea, we grow our own!!!!!

If some states can send illegal immigrants to our colleges and universities on tax payer dollars, we can certainly offer incentives and benefits such as, financial aid in the form of better subsidized loan arrangments, grants, increased scholarships for fields we need, guaranteed job placement, graduation bonuses (high GPA), etc. to lure our brightest into those fields.

The money saved by repealing the anchor baby laws and stopping illegal immigrantion, which will reduce the need for the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985 alone will cover the cost of making our own technically proficient people for the needed technical fields. Our federal government is using millions, perhaps billions, of our dollars to subsidize the EMTAL program.

We don't need immigrants to cover our butts, we just need to get smarter in solving our own problems and needs. Are our politicans so near-sighted that they can't look in to the future and predict our needs?

Beware of Cornyn....Heed!!

He talks the talk from time to time but as you can see doesn't walk the walk.

MW said "GROW OUR OWN"....Damn Straight.

Since when do Americans begin believing we can't do anything anyone else can do and do it better?

We can. We do. We have. And by golly, We will continue to do so and these morons can take their visa-plumping stump and stuff it preferably here the sun don't shine.

Another shell game by the politicans. If they can't get amnesty past, they'll just flood us with more immigrants via the legal route. This is a mess. We already have enough people. We have high tech workers with masters degrees that can't find a job and yet this a--clown from Texas wants more to come in. Are these people out of their minds? Damn straight they are. It's time we start taking care of our own and make these so called immigrants stay in their own country and encourage them to use their skills to make their own country a better place. It's also high time to kick every Republican and Democrat traitor out of office en masse. It's not abortion, it's not gay marriage, it's not tax cuts for fat cats. IT'S IMMIGRATION STUPID AND WE NEED LESS, LESS, LESS, NOT MORE, MORE, MORE.

RIGHT ON Dman 1200!!

Tell it like it is!!

Come on America.....W A K E UP!

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/15405470.htm

Posted on Thu, Aug. 31, 2006

Dealing with a dearth of H-1B visa slots

By MARK G. HEESEN and STUART ANDERSON
Special to the Star-Telegram

A focus on illegal immigration has overshadowed the need to reform America's system for skilled immigrants. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, will oversee a field hearing Thursday at the University of Texas at Dallas that may start to correct this problem.

Because Congress has failed to allocate enough H-1B visas, U.S. employers often must wait more than a year to hire a skilled foreign national. In nine of the past 11 years, employers used up the entire H-1B quota before the fiscal year ended; in the past three years, employers exhausted the quota before the fiscal year started.

H-1B visas are essential -- there is no other way to hire an outstanding international student off a U.S. campus, or a researcher/professional from abroad. The wait is five years or more in the skilled green-card categories (for permanent residence) because Congress also has failed to raise those quotas.

Companies employ many outstanding Americans, but to compete globally, U.S. firms also must hire top talent without regard to place of birth. Current visa limits have caused U.S. companies to hire and place more personnel outside the U.S.

Ill-conceived immigration policies may discourage students from coming to America to start a career. In fact, first-time science and engineering graduate enrollment for international students declined for the third year in a row in 2004, according to the National Science Foundation.

In 2005, U.S. universities awarded 55 percent of master's degrees and 67 percent of Ph.D.s in electrical engineering to foreign nationals. Simply put, when U.S. companies recruit off college campuses, they find many of the potential new hires to be foreign nationals.

Under the law, U.S. employers must pay foreign nationals hired on H-1B visas as much as similar American professionals. Moreover, companies typically pay $6,000 in various legal and government fees, which have funded more than 40,000 scholarships for U.S. college students in science and engineering, according to research by the National Foundation for American Policy.

Cornyn's bill (S 2691), which was included as part of the Senate's broader immigration bill passed in May, would largely solve the key problems facing skilled immigrants and innovative American employers.

It would raise the annual cap on H-1B visas from 65,000 to 115,000, provide for market-based increases in future years and add broader exemptions for those with advanced degrees. In addition, recognizing that it makes no sense to train and educate people and then ask them to leave the country, the bill makes it easier for international students to transition to work and provide an increase in green cards so that highly skilled individuals could stay, innovate and prosper in America.

During the past two decades, skilled immigrants have created many leading-edge companies.

A good example is Houston-based Tanox, which employs 182 people. Tanox founder Dr. Nancy Chang came to America from Taiwan as an international student. After completing her degree at Harvard Medical School, she was hired on a visa by a U.S. pharmaceutical company.

In 1986, with the help of venture capital, she co-founded Tanox with the goal of developing an asthma drug that focused on the allergy-related basis of asthma. At the time, this ran counter to the central belief in how asthma operated. The perseverance paid off in June 2003, when the Food and Drug Administration approved Xolair to treat those with asthma related to allergies.

Today, Tanox is developing TNX-355, an antibody for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and is in discussions with the FDA regarding clinical trials.

Chang, who holds seven patents, said she is passionate about AIDS because, as a young researcher, she worked in one of the first laboratories to confront the disease.

"As an international student, I came to the United States frightened and scared. But I found if you do well and if you have a dream, you will find people in America willing to help and give you an opportunity," said Chang.

When we maintain rational employment-based immigration policies, we help ourselves and play to America's unique strength as a nation of immigrants.

We should ask ourselves a simple question: Is it better to educate international students and send them abroad to work for U.S. competitors, or to assimilate these talented individuals to create jobs and innovation here in America?

We think that Nancy Chang could tell you the answer.


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Mark G. Heesen is president of the National Venture Capital Association, a national trade association. Stuart Anderson is executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research organization. Both organizations are based in Arlington, Va.