<DOC> [109 Senate Hearings] [From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access] [DOCID: f:32147.wais] S. Hrg. 109-759 U.S. VISA POLICY: COMPETITION FOR INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS, SCIENTISTS, AND SKILLED WORKERS ======================================================================= HEARING before the SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY AND CITIZENSHIP of the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ AUGUST 31, 2006 __________ RICHARDSON, TEXAS __________ Serial No. J-109-105 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 32-147 WASHINGTON : 2007 _____________________________________________________________________________ For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512ÿ091800 Fax: (202) 512ÿ092250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402ÿ090001 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JOHN CORNYN, Texas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois TOM COBURN, Oklahoma Michael O'Neill, Chief Counsel and Staff Director Bruce A. Cohen, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director ------ Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship JOHN CORNYN, Texas, Chairman CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware MIKE DeWINE, Ohio DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York TOM COBURN, Oklahoma RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois Reed O'Connor, Majority Chief Counsel Jim Flug, Democratic Chief Counsel C O N T E N T S ---------- STATEMENT OF COMMITTEE MEMBER Page Cornyn, Hon. John, a U.S. Senator from the State of Texas........ 1 WITNESSES Cooper, Bo, former General Counsel, Immigration and Naturalization Service, on behalf of Global Personnel Alliance, Washington, D.C................................................ 5 Daniel, David, President, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas.............................................. 3 Kaplan, Lance, Partner, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, Loewy, LLC, on behalf of the American Council on International Personnel, Iselin, New Jersey............................................. 18 Norman, Phyllis, Vice President, Patient Care Services, Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, Fort Worth, Texas............... 16 Ritter, Philip J., Senior Vice President and Manager of Public Affairs, Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, Texas................ 14 SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD Black, Jan Hart, President, Greater Dallas Chamber, and Ken Menges, Chair, International Business Advisory Council, Greater Dallas Chamber, Partner-in-Charge of the Dallas Office, Dallas, Texas, letter.................................................. 27 Cooper, Bo, former General Counsel, Immigration and Naturalization Service, on behalf of Global Personnel Alliance, Washington, D.C., prepared statement........................... 29 Daniel, David, President, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, prepared statement.......................... 40 Kaplan, Lance, Partner, Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, Loewy, LLC, on behalf of the American Council on International Personnel, Iselin, New Jersey, prepared statement......................... 46 Norman, Phyllis, Vice President, Patient Care Services, Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, Fort Worth, Texas, prepared statement...................................................... 59 Ritter, Philip J., Senior Vice President and Manager of Public Affairs, Texas Instruments, Inc., Dallas, Texas, prepared statement...................................................... 62 U.S. VISA POLICY: COMPETITION FOR INTERNATIONAL SCHOLARS, SCIENTISTS, AND SKILLED WORKERS ---------- THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2006 United States Senate, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:17 a.m., at the TI Foundation Auditorium, Building ECSS, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas, Hon. John Cornyn, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding. Present: Senator Cornyn. OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN CORNYN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS Chairman Cornyn. I woke everybody up, I trust. [Laughter.] Chairman Cornyn. This hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship shall come to order. I want to just interject that it is clear we are going to have to get some more Federal highway funds for Texas so we can make transit to your campus, Dr. Daniel, a little easier. We have been delayed a little bit because of traffic. The current debate over immigration reform has focused exclusively on unskilled illegal immigration. What has been neglected is any discussion of high-skilled legal immigration and its effect on our country's ability to compete in a global marketplace. This issue is relevant because American universities, companies, and government entities are waging a global battle for talent, and by all accounts, our immigration laws and policies place our country at a competitive disadvantage. The truth is that to retain our economic, technological, and military superiority, the United States needs to compete aggressively for the world's talent. For the past 60 years, the United States has not faced much competition from other countries. As a result, high-skilled immigrants have found their way to the United States and made remarkable contributions to our society. Whether you talk about foreign students at Los Alamos 60 years ago or the founders of Intel, Yahoo, or Google, immigrants have enriched our economy and made the United States more competitive. In fact, almost 20 percent of the distinguished scientists and engineers are members of a National Academy of Scientists, and more than a third of U.S. Nobel laureates are foreign born. But the United States is starting to lose ground. A recent report of the National Academy of Sciences entitled ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm'' should serve as a wake-up call. According to that report, China graduates over 200,000 more engineers, computer scientists, and programmers than the United States. Today, India and China graduate three times and Asian countries together eight times as many bachelor's degrees in engineering than the United States. In the long run, the United States must produce more engineers, scientists, and skilled workers. One of every four scientists and engineers is foreign born, and half of doctoral computer science and math degrees and 60 percent of engineering degrees awarded in the United States go to foreign nationals. But while we all agree that the United States must encourage more of its own high school and college students to pursue careers in math and science, we can also all agree that that will not happen overnight. And contrary to what some critics say, increasing the pipeline of U.S. students in those fields while simultaneously making the United States more attractive to foreign students and skilled workers are not mutually exclusive goals. The fact is our public policy should do both. We must train and educate more U.S. students, but we must also ensure that there are jobs here in the U.S. for them to fill. On May 2nd, I introduced what is called the ``SKIL bill,'' S. 2691. Since then, a companion bill has been introduced in the House. The SKIL bill is designed to address this specific problem. It also was accepted as an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed by the Senate. Through changes to our immigration laws, the SKIL bill would enable the United States to attract and retain the most gifted students and workers from around the world. First, the bill exempts any foreign student who has earned a master's or a Ph.D. from a U.S. university from both the temporary visa cap and the green card annual cap. Why after training and educating a foreign student would we force him or her to leave the United States, not because they can't find work, but because we have imposed an artificial cap on the number of visas? Second, the bill creates a floating cap on high-skilled visas so that if our economy continues to grow at the pace it has over the last few years, our visa policy will adapt with it. And as the United States improves the pipeline of domestic students and the need for foreign students and workers diminishes, the visa limit would adjust as well. The SKIL bill also allows foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities to start the green card process while they are in school. These days, the best students are already working for companies during summer breaks and during the school year. If they are in demand, we should allow employers to start the paperwork as soon as possible. Finally, the bill would allow workers who are in the United States and who have complied with the law to renew their visa here in the U.S. Unfortunately, our current immigration law does too little to reward those who comply with the law. I remain guardedly optimistic that Congress will pass comprehensive immigration reform, and I believe that the provisions in the SKIL bill should be included in any final bill. Let me now introduce our first panel. Today, we are fortunate to have panels of distinguished witnesses. The first is Dr. Daniel, President of the University of Texas at Dallas, our host, and thank you, Dr. Daniel, for hosting this hearing. Dr. Daniel previously served as Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and received a Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 and served on the faculty there until 1996. Dr. Daniel is a noted scholar and member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering. He has won the American Society of Civil Engineers' highest award for papers published in its journals, the Normal Medal, and on two occasions has been awarded the second highest award for papers. I would also like to congratulate Dr. Daniel on the recent announcement by the University of Texas System Board of Regents to allocate $27 million for construction of a new facility on the University of Texas at Dallas campus that will focus on research-based education and mathematics, science, and engineering. The second witness on our panel is Mr. Bo Cooper. Mr. Cooper served as General Counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1999 to February 2003, when he became responsible for the transition of immigration services to the Department of Homeland Security. He was the principal legal adviser to the INS during two administrations, at a time when immigration ranked among the most sensitive issues on the national public policy agenda. Mr. Cooper teaches immigration law at the University of Michigan Law School and is testifying today on behalf of the Global Personnel Alliance. Gentlemen, if you would please stand and be sworn. Do both of you swear that the testimony you will give today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Mr. Daniel. I do. Mr. Cooper. I do. Chairman Cornyn. Thank you. Before we begin, let me just say that we would like to make sure we move along relatively expeditiously, so I will ask you to limit your statements to 5 minutes. Your written statement will be made part of the record, and then, of course, we will have time for Q&A to flesh out any things that are missing. And I will be happy to give you an opportunity if you think at the end there are things that we have overlooked or that have not been said that really need to be emphasized, I will give you an opportunity to do that. Dr. Daniel, we will be glad to hear your opening statement. STATEMENT OF DAVID DANIEL, PRESIDENT, THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS, RICHARDSON, TEXAS Mr. Daniel. Senator Cornyn, thank you so much, and thank you for being here at the University of Texas at Dallas. It is a real honor for us to host this Senate hearing. UT Dallas was created by the same individuals who founded Texas Instruments, and it was created because of workforce issues. Eugene McDermott, Cecil Green, and Erik Jonsson felt that in order to create the workforce that Texas Instruments would need in order to develop into the globally preeminent company that it is, it would simply have to have homegrown talent in order to be able to accomplish that. So they created a graduate research institute that later became part of the UT system. Their vision, as I have heard it stated, is that we might 1 day become the MIT of the Southwest. Well, we have a ways to go to get there, but I feel that our first steps are very much along that pathway consistent with that spirit. Eighty percent of our graduates from this institution major in science, engineering, mathematics, or business. So we feel that we are producing exactly the kind of talent that this region, this State, and this Nation needs to remain vital, healthy, and competitive. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, despite being one of the largest and most economically productive metropolitan areas anywhere, does not have a true world-class research university outside of the medical field. We do have UT Southwestern Medical Center, which is a preeminent graduate medical research facility, but on the academic side, we have a ways to go to grow UTD and the other area institutions to that top tier. We are thrilled that the UT system announced recently an unprecedented investment of $2.56 billion to boost competitiveness in key scientific areas, which includes the new building for UT Dallas, Senator, that you mentioned earlier. We are an institution focused on the very best talent within these areas of science, engineering, business, and complementary fields, such as arts and technology. We are working extremely hard to increase the pipeline of local students, and in my written statements, some of those programs are described. I will just highlight very briefly two of them. One is our nano explorers program, which brings about 20 high school students per summer into our nanotechnology labs, suits these kids up in spacesuit-like equipment, and pins them as nano explorers. Actually, Professor Ray Bockman, who is just an incredible scientist, did this because as a child his dad took him into one of these science labs, and he later became one of the Nation's preeminent scientists. So we are very proud of that program. We have an academic bridge program which reaches out to folks principally in the Dallas Independent School District who would not normally think that they are college track, and certainly their SAT scores would not automatically sing out to the world that ``I am going to be successful in college.'' But we take about 30 of these kids under our wing every year, and the most remarkable thing is that the graduation rate of these students is about 80 percent. So we bring them into the university and we graduate them. We have an outstanding science and math education program and are just working diligently to try to increase that pipeline. We do want to continue to attract the very best talent from around the world. Every major U.S. university depends on a few of those smartest people from anywhere in the world to sustain our position of strength as an internationally competitive university. So, with that as opening remarks, Senator, if you have any questions, I would be delighted to answer them. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee. [The prepared statement of Mr. Daniel appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Cornyn. Thank you, Dr. Daniel. We will now hear the opening statement of Mr. Cooper. Thank you for joining us. STATEMENT OF BO COOPER, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL, IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION SERVICE, ON BEHALF OF GLOBAL PERSONNEL ALLIANCE, WASHINGTON, D.C. Mr. Cooper. It is my pleasure, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and the Global Personnel Alliance especially appreciates the leadership that you have shown in connection with this issue, both in stewarding the SKIL bill and in having us here and in making sure that focus stays on this critical issue of the way that our immigration policy has got to be shaped to serve our National competitiveness goals. Our high-skilled immigration policy, despite this key principle, has not been meaningfully updated in over a decade and a half. It has fallen years out of alignment with our country's economic and educational needs. There is not a sufficient path into the university, from the university to the workplace, and there is a severe shortage of professional visas and of green card slots for the most highly skilled. And other countries are watching this, and they are moving in exactly the opposite direction. They are shaping their immigration policies so that they attract into their schools and into their workforces the very people, the best and brightest in key fields from around the world, that we ought to be trying with all of our might to attract into our workplace. Let me try to highlight some of the key issues that arise at each stage of the process, beginning briefly with the student visa process. Getting the best students to come and study in our schools is one of the most effective ways we can find to attract the best scientists, doctors, researchers, and other professionals into our workplaces. But because of delays, because of outmoded requirements regarding long-term intentions after graduation, and inadequate time for post-graduate practical training, that goal is being interrupted, and other countries are viewed as having immigration policies that are more welcoming and more friendly. And faced with this choice, a lot of the world's best students are choosing to go elsewhere. These kinds of problems can become even more acute in the recruitment of highly skilled professionals, both from outside the U.S. and from inside of the country. The H-1B visa, of course, the key and also the only visa available for high- skilled professional assignments, is dispensed according to a formula that is badly out of sync with our Nation's needs. It was only 5 years ago set at 195,000, and every year since, it has dropped, in 2004 to 65,000. That cap has been hit earlier and earlier each year, and this year we set a new low by running out of H-1B visas 4 months before the fiscal year even began. That faces employments with a staggering 16-month period without access to the most highly skilled professionals. This mismatch between immigration policy and our competitiveness goals is most often seen in the public debate from the perspective of the tech sector, and this is certainly a very important perspective because the high-tech sector has exemplified the way that innovation can feed the economy and create American jobs. And it also has exemplified the way that mixing foreign and U.S. intellectual talent can lift or even create industry in this country. But the problems that are faced because of our immigration policies are not at all confined to the tech sector, and they reach to hospitals, to schools, to businesses of all sizes and across the range of industries. I would like to quickly offer one example from the manufacturing sector. This example involves a manufacturer of business jets. A major U.S. employer, they have thousands of U.S. employees. Of these thousands, only a handful--a few of them, about 2 percent--are foreign national workers here on visas, and this company is desperately in need of aerospace engineers, and they cannot find enough of them in this country. This spring, fresh off of a very significant hire of the engineers they could find in this country, they still had not met their needs. But they identified a complement of about 30 highly skilled engineers--by the way, from a competitor company outside the U.S. But it was May, and they knew they were racing the clock. The Friday before Memorial Day, the Government had announced that there were only 12,000 H-1B visas left. So over Memorial Day weekend, there was a team of people preparing H-1B visa petitions for this group of aerospace engineers, getting ready to file them the next week. And, lo and behold, the next week arrives and the announcement is made by the Government that the H-1B visa supply had actually run out the Friday before and no more petitions could be accepted for H-1B until-- October of 2007 is the next time an H-1B can begin work. In this case, there is no alternative hiring strategies possible. They have already hired all the U.S. engineers they could, and so the result is that they are simply left without enough people to succeed and to compete as effectively as they need to. And there could not be a more stark example of the H- 1B program actually failing its policy goal. When companies cannot recruit the talent they need, the cap impedes production, it diminishes competitiveness, and it stunts U.S. job growth. The problem are just the same in connection with the green card process, and those problems are very, very well documented. Wrapping up, Mr. Chairman, effective professional immigration reform is in reach. You have already, with your colleagues, devised a very effective solution. There appears to be strong bipartisan support for high-skilled immigration reform, and there appears to be essentially unanimity that high-skilled immigration reform is a net benefit to the U.S. economy. But the longer this reform is delayed, the more seriously we risk sliding backward in our efforts to maintain global competitiveness. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Mr. Cooper appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Cornyn. Mr. Cooper, let me start with what some of the critics say, and I would like for you to sort of clarify or maybe correct some of the misimpressions that have been mentioned during the course of Senate hearings on the Judiciary Committee about the impact of lifting the cap on H-1B visa workers. First of all, can you tell us whether an H-1B visa worker can be paid less than an American worker? In other words, can companies go out and low-ball the pay of a foreign worker and get him in the country to displace an American worker with impunity? Mr. Cooper. No, that is not at all possible, Mr. Chairman. The program is set up with some pretty strict requirements to ensure that the U.S. workforce is protected. Chief among those is the obligation of the employer to pay either the prevailing wage for the kind of job in the area that is being offered or the actual wage that that employer pays to its similarly situated employees, whichever of those two things is higher. And often in practice that actual wage is, especially in these key fields where recruiting is so difficult, significantly higher than the prevailing wage because that is what market forces call for. And when that is the case, it is that actual wage that has got to be paid to the H-1B. And an employer fails to do so at significant peril. The Department of Labor has important enforcement authority and may exercise those enforcement authorities, and employers can face back-pay obligations, penalties, debarment from using the immigration system--obviously a key penalty--as well as just the public relations difficulties that can face someone who does not abide by program requirements. Chairman Cornyn. Well, based on your answer--and you answer accurately describes my understanding of the law--there seem to be a number of urban myths related to this whole issue. Dr. Daniel, I think you told me earlier that you believe that market forces have the best impact over and above the law in terms of making sure that American workers are not displaced in favor of foreign workers under an expanded H-1B visa policy. Could you expand on that, please? Mr. Daniel. Yes, Senator Cornyn. I have been an engineering professor for 26 years and have had dozens and dozens of graduate students, many domestic and some foreign. Often professors wind up working closely with these students and matching up students with companies, and it has universally been my experience that I see no difference in the salary packages offered to the students, whether they are domestic or international. And the students usually come to me and sort of check in and make sure the salary offer is a fair and a reasonable one. And I have just never in any instance whatsoever seen that be a factor. The companies need the best talent, and they are going to pay prevailing wages. They have to. That has been my experience. Chairman Cornyn. Mr. Cooper, let me ask you another question about the impact of the H-1B visa on American companies and American competitiveness and the ability of the United States to train native-born citizens and other naturalized citizens in these critical areas. My understanding is that U.S. companies have paid more than $1 billion in fees that have funded more than 40,000 scholarships for U.S. students in math and science. These fees obtained from employers as part of the H-1B process have funded hands-on science programs for 75,000 middle school and high school students and 3,000 teachers. And, finally, more than 55,000 U.S. workers and professionals have received training through the H-1B fees paid by companies. Is that information consistent with your understanding of the fees paid by companies as part of the privilege of having H-1B visas? Mr. Cooper. That is exactly right, Mr. Chairman. That was an effective reform to the H-1B program not so long ago based on the notion that users of the system that works to import talent from abroad ought also to contribute to the boosting of talent within this country. And so it is entirely appropriate that employers pay a reasonable fee in this connection. It is actually fairly substantial right now, $1,500 per petition in most instances. And that generates huge sums, as you were describing, somewhere in the neighborhood of $125,000 per year at current levels. Of course, if the H-1B program were recalibrated to meet needs and, therefore, the supply increased, that number would only increase accordingly. So that is a very important way in which the program is structured to also serve a different but related goal, that is, boosting the education and abilities of U.S. workers. On top of that formal structural system for calling on the participation of H-1B users, I think it is important also just to go back to the market forces that Dr. Daniel was talking about. Companies realize that it is just as important for them to be able to have a key pool, a very strong pool of U.S. talent in key fields, and so, very independent of these structural requirements of the H-1B program, tend to invest enormous resources in outreach to universities and outreach to students trying to encourage people to go into sciences, engineering, mathematics, putting in place programs to provide technological abilities at higher level to students at K-12 and universities. And so that takes place very, very frequently just in the private environment when companies themselves, independent of the H-1B program requirements, are trying to serve this very goal of raising the knowledge and the educational levels of U.S. students. Chairman Cornyn. Dr. Daniel, as Mr. Cooper said, there is a lot going on, other than what the Federal Government is doing to encourage what we call homegrown experts in math and science, engineering and technology. Have you seen the fees from H-1B visas to be an effective supplement to help pay for or defray some of the costs for training of American citizens or naturalized citizens who are studying in these key areas? And maybe you could expand a little bit on how you see these working in a complementary fashion if, in fact, you believe they are? Mr. Daniel. Senator, I do not have any personal experience with those fees, but what I do have experience with is just simply confirming that U.S. companies and corporations are pouring substantial dollars into assisting through scholarships and fellowships, summer internship programs, growing our own, if you will. They are highly motivated to have a diverse workforce, as I am sure Mr. Ritter and others will be able to testify today. And so it is simply the reality that massive efforts are being made on their part to try to increase the pipeline. Chairman Cornyn. Recently, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report that I alluded to in my opening remarks called ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future.'' And as you both no doubt know, this is focused largely on how we can improve math and science education in America, encourage more students to study in those areas, encourage more teachers and better teachers to teach in those areas, to maintain America's competitive edge. And this report--again, issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine--is focused primarily on how we can increase our domestic resources when it comes to this necessary component of our competitive edge. But it also speaks specifically to the issue of the H-1B visa, and on page 7 of the report, where it is entitled ``Best and Brightest in Science and Engineering Higher Education,'' one of the actions encouraged by this report was to continue to improve visa processing for international students and scholars. And I want to come back to you in a moment, Dr. Daniel, and ask you about your experience with the Federal Government's processing of visas for international students and scholars. But it also proposes to provide a 1-year automatic visa extension for international students who receive doctorates or equivalent degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or other fields of national need at qualified U.S. institutions to remain in the United States to seek employment. It includes also, in addition to other recommendations, a new skills-based preferential immigration option. Let me direct this to you, Dr. Daniel. I have been told that post-9/11, because of some of the more restrictive visa policies of the U.S. Government in the effort to protect our national security and avoid the scourge of international terrorism, it has actually created impediments to foreign students in some cases coming to the United States and foreign scholars coming to the United States for meetings and the like, and that our competitors in a global economy, other nations that would love to have these foreign students come there and study in their universities, and then live and work there and help stimulate and grow their economy, that this has actually worked to the disadvantage of the United States in our competitive global environment. Could you share with the Committee your experiences in that area? Mr. Daniel. Yes, Senator Cornyn. There has been a very noticeable change since 9/11. I am sure, as you are aware, graduate student applications in the U.S. from international students are down significantly, roughly one-third. Our international student population here at UT Dallas is down a bit. But I think the most significant aspect is really just what you described: the very brightest and smartest people that we want to be thinking about coming to the United States find it very difficult to navigate through the visa process, and as a result, they are turned off, if you will, to the prospect of coming to the U.S. I remember I had a delegation a few months ago from a Chinese university that came to talk with us about academic collaboration, the exchange of students, and so forth. And only about half of the delegation managed to get visas to come and visit with us. And so I was immediately in the position of apologizing to the delegation that they were only half of their intended strength with no apparent rhyme or reason that I could tell why those who did come were able to get visas and those who did not come were not able to. The unfortunate reality, further, is that although 20 years ago the best and brightest international students principally had the U.S. to look to, to go to the best universities in the world, Australia is working adamantly to upgrade their universities. Singapore truly wants to outflank us in attracting the best and brightest in the world to their universities. And those institutions, just as Mr. Cooper said, and those countries are setting up practices, I think, to take advantage of our current weakness in this area. And I think the real public policy question is: Is it in the best interest of the U.S. to turn the best and brightest throughout the world away from the U.S. and hand them over to other countries? And my feeling as a university president is it is just a horrible public policy decision. We want those people here to elevate our university, to elevate the intellectual climate, to sustain our position of international preeminence, and to feed into our society the talent that we need. And it has just, since 9/11, in that regard been going backwards. Chairman Cornyn. Well, thank you, Dr. Daniel. I know in the audience today we have some of my caseworker staff who work hard to help navigate the bureaucracy when there are speed bumps and other impediments to issuing the visas to people who should be--who are not a national security threat and who should be receiving those student or travel visas in the case of international scholars. And we are glad to help, but we want to also note where the impediments are that perhaps are written into the law or otherwise need to be dealt with. Let me ask to follow up one more question to you, Dr Daniel, before I turn to another question for Mr. Cooper. The President's American Competitiveness Initiative proposes new Federal support to improve the quality of math, science, and technology education in our K-12 schools. What obstacles stand in our way of really improving the quality of our children's education in math and science in your view? Mr. Daniel. Senator Cornyn, that is an excellent question. It is a very deep issue. I think the two that come to mind first are the training and qualifications of schoolteachers in the U.S. in mathematics and science. Statistics show that a surprisingly large fraction of our math and science teachers are not actually trained in mathematics and science. And what we genuinely need to do is inspire kids who have the talent and ability in math and science to pursue that field, not to turn them off. So the training of teachers I think is the foundation block, but I think just the message that we as a society and Government send to our young people about the importance of math and science becomes crucial as well. Government programs that help and partner with industry and with educational institutions to provide support and structure to send the message that these are great fields to go into and structures it in a way to engage and interest students I think are exactly the rights kinds of programs to try to get not only at the substance of what takes place in the classroom but the spirit and inspiration that causes students to want to pursue those fields. Chairman Cornyn. Mr. Cooper, one thing that does not make sense to me is the foreign student who graduates from a U.S. university and then takes a job with a U.S. company is required to switch to a temporary visa, and only then after the student has switched to a temporary visa can the employer start the green card process. Why, if we know the student will stay in the U.S. and that the student has a job from an employer, would we require the student to go on a temporary visa? Does that make any sense to you? And if not, what policy would you recommend that we change? Mr. Cooper. I could not agree more, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I think that if the temporary visas were--I mean, if the temporary visas were more adequately available, then you would not have as severe a problem as we see now. But I agree with you entirely that it makes much more sense to have a direct and streamlined route right from the universities and into the workplace for the long term if that is what the employer knows best serves that employer's interest and if the student has the skills that are required for qualification for whatever the long-term visa classification is. And I think that the recipe that is in the SKIL bill for that is a very effective one, is a very simple one. That expands the time after graduation that the student can stay here for practical training and look for a job, and it on the other side makes it easier to link into and apply right up front for permanent residence, once the employer- employee relationship that is going to bring that student into the U.S. workforce has been identified. It is a very simple solution, and I think it is one that you should continue to push for. Chairman Cornyn. I think one of the things that frustrates the American people and certainly my constituents here in Texas when I talk to them--or listen to them, maybe is more the appropriate way to frame it--about immigration is that they seem to be focused almost exclusively on illegal immigration and low-skilled, relatively low- education immigrants coming across our Southern border at the rate of maybe 500,000 or so a year. Currently, estimates are that we have as many as 12 million undocumented immigrants here in the United States. And it strikes me as ironic that we have, by virtue of the failure of the Federal Government to deal effectively with border security and our immigration system, we have virtually uncontrolled or, let's say, at least massive illegal immigration by low-skilled workers, and we put a cap of 65,000 a year on high-skilled workers who are never likely to be a drain on our economy, never access our service system, but instead are likely to create wealth and opportunity and jobs for the American people. How did we get in that condition, Mr. Cooper? You have been involved in the immigration system and debate, and certainly on behalf of two separate administrations. How did we get into this mess? Mr. Cooper. I think a key part of it is losing sight of the basic principle that your immigration policies ought to serve what you identify as your various national goals. And I think that the failure to keep an eye on that is what has led, in large part, to the inability in today's debate to distinguish what kinds of issues are important and what kinds of solutions are appropriate to the question of controlling migration and what to do with the people who have already become a part of the U.S. workforce, et cetera. And then the very different question of how is it that high- skilled immigration policies will serve our economic needs and serve our competitive needs. And I think examples of the mismatch abound every single day. Just yesterday, in connection with our education goals, I happened, totally unconnected with preparation for this hearing, to be in touch with a teacher who is Chinese. She has just graduated with a specialty in bilingual special education from George Washington University, and I was put immediately in mind of the national goals that have been identified in connection with bilingual education. This year the President announced a $114 million initiative called the National Security Language Initiative. The principle is that we as a population in the U.S. ought to have better skills in key languages--Arabic, Chinese--both from the national security standpoint and from the competitiveness standpoint. And so here is a person who falls exactly into the needs that would meet those goals, yet our immigration policies are not set to meet those needs. You cannot find the teachers in this country to be able to teach those languages to our students. And here is the very person who falls right into that category of needs, yet because of the kinds of policies that you described that restrict practical training post-graduation and that do not offer enough--that require someone to have a temporary professional visa and then do not offer enough of those, it is just a block on our ability to incorporate into our workforce someone who we need specifically to meet a clearly identified national goal. And I think that that failure to match immigration policy with other national goals is what contributes to the mismatch you were describing. Chairman Cornyn. Dr. Daniel, from your perspective, what I would translate what Mr. Cooper said or reduce it to in just sort of a word or two is that we ought to have an immigration policy that reflects our National interests. Do you have any quarrel with that formulation or that approach? Mr. Daniel. No, sir. I think you have put it perfectly. Chairman Cornyn. Well, I think it is important, and one of the purposes of this hearing is to make sure that the people in this State, certainly people in North Texas who might be paying attention to the immigration debate, are informed that it is more than just low-skilled workers who are coming across the border. Obviously, we have to deal with that issue in a way that reflects our National values, and also the fact that there are many jobs, I am told, that American companies, employers cannot find a sufficient workforce for, both at the high end and relatively low end of the education and skill range. But we will continue to persevere in the U.S. Congress. My hope is we will be able to work out the differences between the Senate bill and the House bill. But the testimony that both of you have provided has been enormously helpful and enlightening with regard to dealing with the H-1B visa issue. It should be an issue where people of good will and common sense could come together and find a solution, even in the absence of a comprehensive immigration reform bill. But my hope is that it is part of that comprehensive reform that will deal with our National security interests, will deal with the interests of our economy, and will deal with the issue of global competitiveness. I mentioned yesterday, as Dr. Daniel knows, at the American Electronics Association Forum on International Competitiveness that the Federal Government is taking some bold steps, the Congress is, on this issue in terms of global competitiveness to deal with both the domestic homegrown scientists and mathematicians and engineers as well as the H-1B visa issue through what is called the PACE legislation, Preserving America's Competitiveness. The good news is that it has bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress, which is always essential to getting good policy passed, and my hope is that very soon upon returning after our August recess, or hopefully, if not then, in January, we can move to provide many of those incentives that, Dr. Daniel, you in particular said we need in terms of encouraging teachers and certainly students to study in this area. And that will complement the work we have been able to do on immigration reform, particularly with H-1B visas. With that, let me say to both of you, thank you for your contribution, very valuable contribution. I appreciate that very much. We are going to take about a 5-minute recess while we set up the table for the next panel. [Recess.] Chairman Cornyn. Before I introduce our next witnesses, I want to offer into a record a letter from the president of the Greater Dallas Chamber regarding this particular issue. It can be easy when we talk about a national and international issue to forget that it will be the local communities here in Texas and elsewhere that will suffer from our failure to act. She correctly notes that if the United States does not want the best scientists and engineers the world has to offer, plenty of other nations do. And this letter will be made part of the record, without objection. Our next panel is a distinguished panel that I will now introduce, starting with Mr. Philip Ritter from Texas Instruments. Mr. Ritter is Senior Vice President and Manager of Public Affairs for that company. He has global responsibility for the firm's public affairs activities, including government relations, philanthropy, and community affairs. Mr. Ritter started with Texas Instruments in 1989 in the company's law department as counsel to a variety of the company's businesses. Our next witness is Phyllis Norman. Phyllis Norman is the Vice President of Patient Care Services for Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital. She is responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating nursing care and other clinical operation services in this 710-bed tertiary care hospital. In addition to being a registered nurse and a certified nursing administrator, she holds a master's of business administration in health care administration. Our next witness, our third witness, is Mr. Lance Kaplan. Mr. Kaplan is a partner with the global immigration firm of Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen, and Loewy. Previously, Mr. Kaplan was a partner responsible for global immigration services for a Big Four accounting firm. He has extensive experience with the immigration laws and policies of other countries and could perhaps give us a broader perspective on what other countries are doing to better compete for the same pool of skilled workers. Before I turn to Mr. Ritter, let me just acknowledge the presence of members of the immigration staff of Senator Kennedy and other members of the Immigration Subcommittee. Senator Kennedy is the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee, and I think it is fair to say he has a lot of interest in the topic we are talking about today and has been a forceful advocate for comprehensive immigration reform in the United States Senate. I also see a former member of my staff, Tiffany Thibodeau, who is now with the Department of Homeland Security. So there are a lot of folks paying attention to what is going on here today, and we trust we will be edified by the testimony of the second panel, as we have been by the first. Mr. Ritter, let me turn to you for your opening statement. STATEMENT OF PHILIP J. RITTER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND MANAGER OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, INC., DALLAS, TEXAS Mr. Ritter. Well, thank you, Senator Cornyn. I appreciate you inviting me to discuss an issue that is critical to the competitiveness of U.S. business, and that is access to top talent. Competitiveness is our top public policy priority at Texas Instruments, and we support the President's American Competitiveness Initiative, which calls for increased investments in basic research, making the R&D tax credit permanent, improving math and science education, and ensuring better access to skilled professional, including highly educated foreign nationals. Your hearing today highlights this last item and the need to update it and reform our deeply flawed immigration laws, specifically those pertaining to highly educated foreign professionals. Like you, we are advocates for change in this area. And on that note, I want to thank you for your leadership in bringing forward the SKIL bill, legislation which we believe will go a long way toward addressing these deficiencies. The United States benefits when foreign-born scientists, doctors, teachers, engineers, and entrepreneurs live and work in this country. I would like to highlight three points this morning: First, the United States' long-term competitiveness is tied to the intellectual brain power of its people, and particularly people in the science and engineering workforce, and, unfortunately, the U.S. is not producing enough American-born professionals to meet the demands in these fields. Second, we always want to have access to the best talent in the world, but building a domestic pipeline of scientists and engineers must be a national imperative, and there are some very interesting things going on in that area in this region, as you know. And, third, access to talent is not just about more H-1B visas. It is also about green card reform that ensures that foreign nationals can remain in the United States with their families and build their careers here. On the first topic, the United States' science and engineering workforce, whether it is Tom Friedman, Norm Ornstein, the National Academy of Sciences, or whatever, the verdict is in. We face significant challenges in developing, attracting, and retaining an adequate science and engineering workforce. We know that more than half and in some disciplines two-thirds of the advanced degrees awarded by U.S. universities in science and engineering are earned by foreign nationals. Due to a number of factors, we also know that fewer U.S. students are choosing to study in these fields. And despite this grim reality, U.S. businesses, companies like TI, must compete and succeed in a highly competitive global market. For example, TI is highly dependent on electrical engineers and computer scientists. When we recruit at Texas schools, we find upwards of 70 percent of the master's and Ph.D.'s in the EE field are awarded to foreign nationals. We need access to that talent. If we don't have access to that talent, we cannot grow our job base and invest here in the U.S. And it is the same situation for our competitors, and it is a constant scramble. Building the domestic pipeline. We always want to tap the world's best and brightest, especially in this global economy. But there is no doubt we must do more here in the U.S. to build an indigenous pipeline of talent. In fact, our company's primary philanthropic and volunteer efforts are in furthering and enhancing the math/science education pipeline at all grades and at all levels, and you have in the record an inventory of several of TI's education initiatives. What I would point out specifically is something that is known around here at Project Emmitt, and about a mile and a half down the road from here, we just finished construction on a building that will eventually be a $3 billion advanced semiconductor manufacturing plant, and we went through a site selection process a couple years ago, trying to decide where we were going to build that, and we basically had two issues: Number one, would it be cost competitive to build here? And, number two, would we have access to the talent and the climate for innovation that we needed? We pointed out a deficiency which Dr. Daniel noted earlier, that this region lacks a top engineering school, and we asked the State of Texas to do something about it if they expected to attract that investment. Well, the State of Texas made a $300 million commitment to the J. Erik Jonsson Engineering School, primarily in the graduate research area, to improve the number of faculty and students that will be studying here in engineering, especially electrical engineering. And that was a key factor in our decision to make that $3 billion investment here in the U.S. and in this community. The Federal Government clearly has a role in making math and science proficiency a national imperative and to ensure the next generation of scientists and engineers. The President's Math Now, Advanced Placement, and Adjunct Teachers programs, which we strongly support, are important tools in reaching that goal, and finding enough qualified math and science teachers in high schools is one of the greatest challenges we face in addressing this issue. Finally, on green card reform, as you know, the Government has already exhausted the H-1B visa quotas for the next fiscal year as well as the additional 20,000 visas available for students graduating with advanced degrees from U.S. universities. There is no question that more visas are needed, and we strongly support the provisions in the SKIL bill that not only raise the H-1B cap but also exempt altogether professionals who have earned a master's degree or higher. From TI's point of view, why would we send these graduates home to compete against us, compete against our company? It makes absolutely no sense. Equally important in the bill's provisions are those that update the employment-based visa or the green card program. They will provide additional visas and generally exempt individuals with these degrees. A majority of scientists and engineers earning advanced degrees from U.S. universities are foreign born. Many of them wish to stay here with their families and establish their careers. We have got about 12,000 employees and about an equal number of contractors who work at TI's operations in North Texas. I have the privilege of serving as the executive sponsors of the Indian Diversity Initiative at TI. We have got about 600 TI'ers of Indian descent who work in our operations, and I tell you, their contributions to our business success is absolutely critical, and they are delightful bunch of people to work with. So, in short, the goals and objectives of the SKIL bill are critically important, and, Senator Cornyn, I really want to thank you for your leadership on this and urge you to strongly secure some relief on this high-end visa issue this year. Thank you very much. [The prepared statement of Mr. Ritter appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Cornyn. Thank you, Mr. Ritter. Ms. Norman, we would be glad to hear from you. STATEMENT OF PHYLLIS NORMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, PATIENT CARE SERVICES, HARRIS METHODIST FORT WORTH HOSPITAL, FORT WORTH, TEXAS Ms. Norman. Thank you, Senator. I do appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today about my thoughts on the SKIL bill, S. 2691, particularly as it relates to recruitment of foreign nurse graduates. As you mentioned, I am the chief nursing officer at a large tertiary care facility, and one of my primary responsibilities is to be sure that we have enough registered nurses to provide the services that the hospital provides within its walls and out in the community. The health care industry is facing a number of challenges as we are beginning to deal with an ever aging population, an increase in obesity, and the development of chronic health problems that require more and more services, and services provided by registered nurses. Currently, the United States cannot produce the number of qualified registered nurses that it needs. Texas alone in the year 2010 will need 40,000 more nurses than will be available. It is predicted that by the year 2020 there will be a shortage in this country of 1 million nurses. This is due to a variety of factors. There are many other careers that are more attractive than nursing these days, especially for women. There is a shortage of faculty to train nursing students. And the RN people is aging; the average age is 46 years old, and people are opting out of the profession in large numbers at an earlier age than most other occupations. A lot is being done at the institutional level, the State and local and Federal level, but funding is really inadequate, and the lead time to make much improvement is too long to have an immediate impact. We are really on a collision course with the growing patient care needs that makes the availability of qualified immigrant nurses so critical for us. It is estimated that 15 percent of the new nurses licensed in this country each year are foreign graduates--15 percent. Any interruption of their availability will have an immediate effect on the health care industry. We did have such an interruption in 2005 when visa numbers for skilled employment-based immigrants were oversubscribed and a waiting list was established for those largest sending countries--China, India, and the Philippines. The effect was a 3-year hold on admissions of these immigrants. While other categories of skilled workers were affected other than nurses, most of those employees were already in the United States and could continue to work until their green card were issued. Nurses do not have such a temporary work category, so they had to wait abroad for this condition to be lifted. Luckily, through the initiative of the American Hospital Association and the leadership of your colleague, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Congress was persuaded to ``recapture'' 50,000 visas that were unused from prior years and apply them to nurses as well as physical therapists. However, the pool is drying up and expected to dry up by November possibly. More than half of these have been used to accommodate the dependents of the workers. This time the waiting list will not be limited to those three countries but will be expended to all countries. And instead of a 3-year delay, this will stretch out to 5 years. Imagine losing 15 percent of the new nurses in this country each year for a 5-year period. We are talking about 75,000 nurses that will be affected. Hospitals and their patients really cannot take this kind of hit. Luckily, there is a ready solution, and your excellent SKIL bill addresses the problem along with providing many improvements to employment-based, legal immigration. It does so by taking registered nurses and physical therapists out from under the annual worldwide cap for skilled workers. It does so based on the existing designation by the Secretary of Labor as ``shortage occupations'' for registered nurses and physical therapists, thereby allowing them to receive blanket labor certification. Should other measures improve the domestic supply, these professions would go back under the caps. Therefore, there is really no danger of flooding the market with unneeded immigration. We face a crisis within the next few months, and we urge Congress to pass the SKIL bill, either as part of the comprehensive immigration reform, as a separate bill, or as a rider to a year-end spending measure. Whatever the procedure, the remedy is needed now. I want you to picture what happens when we do not have enough registered nurses. We close hospitals beds. Sometimes small communities close their hospital entirely. We have overcrowded emergency rooms, delayed treatment, elimination or reduction of needed services, and occasionally denied access to patients who really need the care. We need your help, and we appreciate the work that you are doing on this. [The prepared statement of Ms. Norman appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Cornyn. Thank you very much for your opening statement, Ms. Norman. We appreciate that. Mr. Kaplan, we would be glad to hear from you. STATEMENT OF LANCE KAPLAN, PARTNER, FRAGOMEN, DEL REY, BERNSEN, LOEWY, LLC, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL PERSONNEL, ISELIN, NEW JERSEY Mr. Kaplan. Thank you, Senator. We appreciate the opportunity to testify before you today. I am here on behalf of the American Council on International Personnel, which is an organization which represents nearly 200 in-house immigration professionals at America's leading corporations, and I strongly concur with both your opening comments and also the comments of all of the other witnesses here today, wherein everybody has clearly identified that the United States faces a talent shortage and our current system clearly does not have the ability to recruit and retain the brightest and the top talent that we need in order to remain competitive in our environment. The perspective that I bring today is to try and show yourself as well as the Committee what other countries are doing versus what we are doing, and the reality is that historically the United States has really had a program which has been followed by other countries. As technology has advanced and as countries have advanced, they have recognized the need to change immigration laws to facilitate the introduction of talent into their economies, both at the student level as well as temporary and permanent personnel moving in to work within the corporations. Unfortunately, here in the United States, I think that we have not adjusted as quickly as we should have, and so what I would look to do today is just focus on a number of countries. As an example, my written testimony contains more detail, but I will focus primarily today on Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, but primarily Australia. Australia has adopted a particular approach to immigration which is slightly different from what we have done here. In the first instance, what they have done is they have undertaken formal studies which document the benefit of immigration, and they have done that in order to stop the debate in the sense of saying is immigration a benefit or is it not a benefit. They have conducted formal studies through the universities which have shown immigration definitely is an economic benefit to the country. Like the United States, Australia has structured its immigration intake into both temporary and permanent, and in doing so, it has based its immigration policy based upon the need of the country, and it has specifically taken steps to identify what the needs are and structured programs to accommodate those needs. What it has done is it is based on students and as Dr. Daniel eloquently stated, 17 percent of the Australian student population is made up of foreign students. So the student community in Australia represents a significant revenue boost for the Australian economy because there are foreign students bringing revenue into the country. But over and above that, there is obviously a significant talent pool from which the country draw. In doing so, what they have done is they have made it easy for students to apply for a student visa, and, secondarily, they have made it easy for students to actually go ahead and move directly from student to independent residence. So, in other words, there isn't this artificial barrier, unfortunately like we have in the United States, where students are required to demonstrate--we actually force them to acquire--that they have demonstrated an intent to return, whereas in Australia it is exactly the opposite. They really want them to come, and they want them to stay, and they are going to give them permanent residency to do so. Similarly, in the temporary residence program, what they have done is that they have created a precertification program which is very similar to what the SKIL bill creates, which basically allows for companies to put in place a mechanism whereby they create precertification that the applications in which all the bona fides of the company are documented at one time. And what this does is it reduces the amount of time that the adjudicators and that the companies have to go and continually repeat the same information about the company, and it allows for the streamlining and the expeditious processing of people coming into the country. Then what they have done is that they have linked the temporary residence program with the permanent residence program, which in turn allows companies who are compliant to move people straight into permanent residence, which in turn links the two and ultimately allows for consistency and certainty and an ability of corporations to plan. So there is a lot of forethought that has gone into the structuring of their program, and they have continually tweaked their program to accommodate the needs of business and have been very blatant in the acknowledgment that a skilled immigration is critical for the development of the country. They have blatantly said and they have recognized it, to the point where 70 percent of the permanent residence members are dedicated to skilled immigration versus as in the United States we have got only 16 percent of our permanent immigration to skilled immigration. Canada and the United States and the United Kingdom have also created similar situations whereby they have focused on skill to recruit top talent, and even a country like Costa Rica has put in place a system whereby the precertification program has reduced their processing time from 4 months to 15 days, all because they have listened to the needs of business and they have listened to the needs of the country to determine that competition is out there and that they have to get their share of talent. The SKIL bill goes a long way to meeting these needs, and while each of these countries' systems do not necessarily have all of the right answers, certainly the message that we should take from them is that the worst thing that we could do is nothing. And the SKIL bill goes a good way to addressing our top talent needs. I will be happy to answer any questions, and once again, we appreciate the opportunity to testify. [The prepared statement of Mr. Kaplan appears as a submission for the record.] Chairman Cornyn. Well, thank you, Mr. Kaplan, and thanks to each of you for your opening statements. I have a few questions I would like to follow up to put a little meat on the bone and maybe probe a little bit more on some of the things you have already talked about. Mr. Ritter, when a company like Texas Instruments cannot find the people with the special skills that you need in order to do your jobs there, what alternatives do you have in terms of your operations, your manufacturing operations here in the United States versus some other country around the world in terms of outsourcing and the like? Mr. Ritter. The answer may depend on which part of the business, whether it is manufacturing, the inability to retain somebody to do the manufacturing skills or software skills or whatever. But, in general, if you cannot do a critical step of the business process here either from a labor availability point of view or because it costs too much, you are going to do it somewhere else. And so, you know, there are some excellent universities outside the United States. I was in India last week and went to the India Institute of Technology in Madras, and, you know, it is remarkable not only the volume--and you cited some of the numbers, in terms of the number of engineers coming out of places like India and China, but also qualitatively how good these universities have become. And so for any company that operates on a global scale--and today over 75 to 80 percent of TI's revenue comes from outside the U.S. You know, if we cannot--if we do not have the talent here to do our advanced design and manufacturing work, it will go to the places that do have that talent. Chairman Cornyn. Let me ask you about a formulation that I have discussed in the past, basically that we have three choices when it comes to this issue. One is we can grow more domestic talent, and certainly we have talked extensively about TI's and other companies' efforts to do that in conjunction with the universities like the University of Texas at Dallas. Number two, if we cannot grow enough domestic talent, we have got to have a more expensive H-1B visa program so we can import that talent. But if we fail to do number one and number two, we fail to have the sufficient skill and talent to perform these jobs, do you agree with me that the only alternative is to outsource that work to other countries and the associated economic activity will no longer take place here in the United States and the jobs that go with it but, rather, in those countries where the jobs are outsourced? Mr. Ritter. It is inevitable. I mean, smart people are a proxy for economic wealth, you know, long term. I mean, you think about--you look at the history of TI, for example. Jack Kilby in this community invented the integrated circuit in 1958, and it was a great innovation, and it wound up becoming, you know, a huge, multi-billion- dollar global industry. Well, Jack was one very, very smart guy who made a critical breakthrough invention. Well, you know, if you have got a lot of smart people who are working together in a community, at a university or at company, or in kind of closer dynamic for both innovation and economic growth, you are going to get jobs, you are going to get investment like the facility that is going up down the road. But if those people are not here, if they are not allowed to stay, if they are going somewhere else, then we won't. We won't get it here, and those jobs will be outsourced. Chairman Cornyn. Well, some have suggested on the floor of the United States Senate that we ought to somehow penalize companies for outsourcing jobs to other countries. I think several commentators on cable news and elsewhere regularly have segments on the American companies outsourcing jobs and criticizing them for doing so. Why can't Congress just pass a law and say that American companies cannot outsource jobs to other countries, even if they cannot find labor here in the United States? What would be the impact? Mr. Ritter. It makes absolutely no sense. You know, the assumption that something as dynamic as certainly our industry or the high-technology industry is always going to remain the same and you are going to have the same number and kinds of jobs in a community like North Texas today that you did 5 years ago or that you will have 5 years from now makes absolutely no sense. We need to be focused instead on: How do we constantly climb the technology ladder? How do we innovate to get to the next step? How do we create new industries and new jobs in the community that do not exist today? Some of the research that is going on in nano- electronics, for example, here at UTD is going to result in economic activity, entrepreneurial outfits, new job creation, you know, 5 and 10 years from now. We cannot even predict what it is going to look like today. That is the dynamic we have got to encourage rather than trying to lock in the status quo and think that everything that we have got here today is going to remain the same forever, because it will not. Chairman Cornyn. Ms. Norman, when your hospital hires nurses, could you expand on what you do to try to hire U.S.- based nurses and only then turn to foreign nurses? And could you tell us, is your search based on merit alone, or is it based on other considerations? Ms. Norman. Our preference is to recruit domestic nurses. We would like to be able to grow all the nurses that we need in our community, and so we have a number of initiatives available, scholarships, work-related programs to support nursing students. We lend faculty to universities. We do any number of things to try and grow enough, if you will, to be able to support our needs. However, you know, the fact of the matter is there are more attractive careers. People are looking elsewhere. Looking in this room at the number of women that are here now, 4 years ago that would not be the case, is my guess. When I went into nursing, that was a different story, and that was about 40 years ago. So we do make every attempt, and much is going on in the country, to try to educate the number of nurses that we need here. However, that is just not enough, and so we need that external talent right now. It would be great in the future if we could overcome these difficulties, and with all the efforts, possibly we will get there. But it will be a long time, and so we cannot afford to have the interruption. So in looking at a nurse, what we look for are the qualifications: that they have graduated from an accredited program, that they are licensed in the State, and we then have competency-based evaluations as they come into the workforce to determine do they really have the critical thinking abilities that they need for us to even work with the individual. And then we design special programs for them to get them up to speed. Chairman Cornyn. As we have discussed, there is obviously a huge shortage of qualified nurses in America, and the Department of Labor has designated the profession as a shortage occupation. In other words, the Federal Government has acknowledged exactly what you have testified to here today. But then those same nurses that the Federal Government says we need are subject to an annual green card limit that has been talked about, which, of course, seems entirely inconsistent. Do you have any opinion as to how we got ourselves into this mess? In other words, how is it that we have been unable to attract more students into nursing schools? And how is it that we have created policies that seem so inconsistent in terms of what the needs of the community are and access to good nurses? Ms. Norman. Well, I have already mentioned that other careers are more attractive, but the number one factor related to not being able to produce enough nurses is the shortage of faculty, qualified faculty at the doctorate level. And the fact of the matter is salaries are so low for faculty members that academic institutions cannot compete with hospitals and the rest of the health care industry in paying the kinds of salaries that practicing nurses get. So that is the number one factor. Much is being done at all levels, really, to address this as much as possible. Chairman Cornyn. If there are not enough nurses, why don't market forces increase, force the increase in pay that would attract more people into the field? Ms. Norman. Well, it is moving up. Nursing salaries are moving up. But it is the academic institutions that have certain policies that prevent nursing faculty from making more than other faculty members. Chairman Cornyn. And as you say, the other piece of the puzzle is not having enough teachers, people teaching people how to become nurses here, too, for the reasons you-- Ms. Norman. But there are special programs in Texas, special grants that are made available for individuals who want to get a master's or a doctorate degree in nursing, if they will stay in teaching then in an academic setting for a certain period of time. Chairman Cornyn. And there are a lot of things, as you say, that are being done at the local level by hospitals volunteering some of their nursing staff to serve as teachers and provide for that shortage? Ms. Norman. Correct. Chairman Cornyn. I mean, there is a lot going on at the local and State level, even while the Federal Government continues to be part of the problem because of the caps on the green cards and the like. Mr. Kaplan, I was very much interested in what you had to say about how other countries prioritize their visas for the people who have the kinds of skills that they know they need in order to compete in a global economy. And as you have said, only 16 percent of American visas go to skilled immigrants, and about half go for family members. I guess you should say we have kind of a family-oriented immigration policy rather than a skill-oriented immigration policy. Is there some way we can focus more on skills yet still be family friendly, in other words, allow families to be unified and not separated? Because I hear that complaint quite a bit, that even for people who do get green cards, sometimes it may take, because of caps, country-related caps, 8, 10 years for a close family member to also come to the United States. Mr. Kaplan. It is a very interesting point because, you know, the U.S. really does put an emphasis on family reunification, and it is an integral part of our immigration policy. And it is very valuable and it is very important, and it should not be, you know, not considered relevant. However, if you look overseas, I think that what some other countries have done is that they have actually recognized that issue as well, and what they have done is they have recognized that the family component is very important. In some countries, they have actually gone even a little bit further than we have gone, to the point where--I will give you an interesting example. In the Australian immigration debate, there was always this argument about the cost of family immigration, because the Australian--it is quite interesting. The Australian economy is very much more socialist, of course, than we are. Yet at the same we are worried about the cost of immigration. And they did an analysis of the cost of parent-related immigration, which was really interesting, and they did an analysis as to how to taper that versus skilled immigration. And they have come up with an economic-based program which allowed parents who are not going to be a drain on the economy to come in. Having said that, they did--you know, for us it is possible to balance by allowing--the SKIL bill goes a long way to accommodate issues like that because what it does is it allows for the numbers to increase, which in turn does not detract yet from the family-based system, which is what other countries have done, with a lot of increase in the skill-based, and there is a lot of focus on skill-based and based on what the needs of a country have been. For example, in some countries you will find that you get-- in a points-based system, you are going to be given points for skill, age, language, as well as in some cases family members that are already based in the country. So once again, while we cannot achieve the final result, you know, right away, what the SKIL bill does is it does give us the ability to at least increase our skill base, but at the same time not damage what really is somewhat of-- Chairman Cornyn. By accepting certain high-skilled students from the-- Mr. Kaplan. That is correct. Chairman Cornyn. Graduates from the cap. Mr. Kaplan. That is correct. Chairman Cornyn. It allows us to accomplish both of those goals. Mr. Kaplan. Absolutely. Any increase in the permanent number. Chairman Cornyn. In your practice, have you seen instances where foreign nationals who are studying or working in the United States on temporary visas actually move back to another country or to their home because of frustration within immigration backlogs? Mr. Kaplan. Yes, absolutely. There is no doubt that that has occurred, and particularly what-- Chairman Cornyn. Let me just ask, interject: Is that because of a shortage of people working on the process? Or is it because of legal or other impediments that prevent that from moving more quickly? Mr. Kaplan. I would suggest that it is a combination of both. I would say that, you know, the current system sometimes makes it just too difficult to have certainty about their long- term future. And there have been a number of factors that have come into play. If you take, for example, China and India as two countries which have historically delivered foreign students to the U.S. who are really critical, as has been stated here before, what you will find is that in the current global economy there is a concept of the returnee, and that is that people who have studied here are being really sought after to come back to their home countries because the economies of those countries are doing well, there is a significant shortage of management and skill in those countries, and I think it is very difficult for somebody who has no certainty, because the system cannot give them certainty, to look to plain their future in a country where, in essence, if their home country is doing well and there are opportunities for them, it is a big pull to come home. And if things are going to be difficult here because there is just simply no category for them to go into and they really have to fight to stay and fight to remain, I think that it is just much easier to go home, take advantage of the opportunities that home represents and the opportunities and the increase in those countries' economies, and unfortunately, we just simply lose out--all the time, effort, and energy that we have put into training them, giving them an education, and then suddenly they are lost. Chairman Cornyn. Dr. Daniel talked a little bit about the fact that because of impediments to foreign students coming to study here, other countries have offered attractive packages or made offers to those. Can you tell us, in the global competition for the best and the brightest, if the United States does not step up and deal with issue, as we have discussed here this morning, what countries are in the game and competing with us for those best and brightest students today? Mr. Kaplan. Unfortunately, most countries today. So, for example, we have mentioned Australia, significantly. The U.K. is focusing very heavily on the recruitment of foreign students. In Europe, the European Union is really putting an emphasis on the gathering of some kind of a central university top system which is going to make it much easier for students to go and work in Europe. Singapore has been mentioned, which is a very big part of the glut of the talent pool. And you will find that just those countries alone, just using those as examples, we are really going to be struggling to compete because it is much easier, and they really are encouraged to go to those countries, whereas here it is made very difficult. Chairman Cornyn. So it sounds to me from your testimony and that of others that while America has been the beneficiary of the migration of the best and brightest of this country over the course of our 200-year-plus history, we stand in danger of moving backwards because other countries are now beginning to compete with us at our own game. Would that be a fair way of saying it? Mr. Kaplan. Yes. In fact, it has been stated in the Australian debate that the thing that they worry about most is that the United States will recognize, you know, what the current situation is and fix it. That is part of the debate. That sort of sums it up, I would think. Chairman Cornyn. So they will prosper if we remain asleep at the switch, is another way of-- Mr. Kaplan. But the worst thing we could do is nothing. Chairman Cornyn. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony and for the help you have given us in understanding these important issues. Also, again, to our first panel, thanks for your contribution, Mr. Cooper and Dr. Daniel. Dr. Daniel, thanks for making the facilities here at University of Texas at Dallas available to us. I hope the testimony we have heard today will add to the debate and will help people understand that the immigration challenge t this Nation faces is not just about border security, it is not just about low-skilled immigration. It is about how can America compete in a global economy and what kind of immigration policy is in our National interest. And the fact that, as this panel has reiterated time and time again, if we do nothing America will lose in that global competition. And the aspirations that I know every generate has for succeeding generations, that somehow their life will be better, their opportunities greater than even those that we enjoy now, that we will not be able to keep that commitment to future generations unless we wake up and correct the mistakes of our current policy--or, as some might say, our current non-policy--when it comes to this area. On behalf of the Subcommittee, I want to thank everyone for their time and testimony. I particularly want to extend my appreciation to my staff, who have worked hard to make this possible. We have got my chief counsel, Rita O'Connor; Linden Melmed, who is counsel on the Subcommittee, who is my immigration specialist. We have also got a number of folks here from my Dallas staff here who have made this possible here today. So I want to extend my thanks and appreciation to each of them. We will leave the record open until 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 7th, for members of the Committee to submit additional documents into the record or to ask additional questions in writing. So I will just alert you that those may be coming, and if you will please turn to those as quickly as you can so we can get that information into the record. With that, the hearing is adjourned. 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