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This commencement season, thousands of foreign-born students will be handed American diplomas — and then will be told to pack their bags and leave the country. That is bad news for America's economic growth.
It's not that our economy lacks room for these talented graduates. U.S. employers, facing critical skilled-worker shortages, are eager to hire them. But the cap for skilled-worker visas was exhausted in April, before members of the class of 2007 received the degrees required to apply.
In effect, the visa program encourages a brain drain, sending graduates — and their world-class educations — back to their home countries to compete against U.S. businesses.
Gone Quickly
Recent graduates are hardly the only foreign-born professionals this outdated system keeps off our shores. Demand for the skilled-worker visa, known as the H-1B, was so high this year that the government received 133,000 applications — more than double the annual 65,000 allowance — on the very first day applications were accepted. Even as the economy has changed dramatically over the past 17 years, the skilled-worker visa cap is stuck at its 1990 level.
We must ensure that our immigration policy responds to labor-market realities. And that is why I am pleased that the comprehensive immigration reform bill now before the Senate would raise the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000 and provide for a market-based adjustment so that the cap can climb as high as 180,000, depending on economic needs.
But while this plan is a vast improvement over the status quo, it falls short because it fails to exempt from the cap the foreign-born professionals we need most.
When the Senate resumes debating comprehensive immigration reform this week, I will fight to exempt from the cap foreign nationals holding a U.S. graduate degree in any field; a non-U.S. graduate degree in science, technology, engineering or math; or medical-specialty certification based on U.S. training. Taken together, these reforms would deliver much-needed relief — and vital human capital — to our innovative industries.
The high-tech sector has been particularly squeezed by a shortage of homegrown talent. At Microsoft alone, 3,000 domestic positions remain unfilled. And the forecast is grim: Over the next decade, the Labor Department estimates the U.S. economy will create more than 1.4 million jobs in the computer and information science industries.
That's enough jobs to absorb a 75% increase in the number of U.S.-born computer science and math graduates — at a time when the number of American students studying science and technology continues to fall, and more than half of all U.S. postgraduate degrees in math and engineering are awarded to foreign nationals.
It's not just the high-tech industries whose competitive edge is threatened. As a McKinsey study recently concluded, America's leadership in global financial services is quickly eroding. A key culprit, says the study, is that today's H-1B regime prevents U.S. financial services firms from hiring the talent they need.
Our immigration laws are pushing foreign nationals who receive U.S. MBAs to take their degrees elsewhere. Many relocate to Britain, which automatically grants work permits to MBAs from the world's top 50 business schools. Shouldn't our country do the same for U.S. business school graduates? It's no wonder U.S. university officials voice concern that unless top international students can expect work authorization upon graduation, they will increasingly turn down U.S. schools for foreign ones.
Can't Wait
While H-1B reforms will most visibly benefit businesses facing high-skilled labor shortages, in the long run American workers can also gain. Enabling American companies to access the talent they need ensures that they will keep jobs on our shores, and that they will continue to grow in this country. And by conducting cutting-edge research and developing new technologies, foreign professionals create good-paying jobs for American workers. In fact, over the past 15 years foreign-born workers have started one in four U.S. public companies that were venture-backed.
I support comprehensive immigration reform and believe that a critical element of any comprehensive package must be maintaining a talented work force. We cannot miss the opportunity to reform our immigration system for skilled foreign-born professionals. Failing to act now threatens nothing less than America's competitive edge.
Lieberman, an Independent Democrat, represents Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
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