Skilled Immigrants on Why They're Leaving the U.S.
I left the US because I finally got fed up of the treatment of anyone foreign - I was working at a top US university on an international project, but every time I returned from a conference or field work I had to convince some not finished high school rent-a-cop at immigration that I was allowed back in. I wasn't allowed on field work in the US because the research plane flying the experiment and equipment I designed had the door to the cockpit open - and as a foreigner I couldn't get airport security clearance to be on such a flight.
The bioscience people left the US long ago for countries where 4000year old mythology didn't dictate what you could work on, the physical scientists are going now.
Still if you get rid of all the immigrants the US will be a world leader in beaded blankets and feather headresses.
It's anecdotal, but my wife moved here 1.5 years ago and before she quit her job to move here with me, she was a Global Application Manager for DHL International (Deutsche Post). She was responsible for a team of software engineers and support technicians whose app was installed in 9 countries, at 20 locations all over the world. She has expertise in Oracle and is fluent in Spanish as well as English. The software controlls automotive sequencing (just in time part delivery) for Chrysler, Volkswagen, Seat, Ford, and GM where the supplier can be charged > $10,000 per minute of downtime. We met through work and she was always the person who could be counted on to troubleshoot any issue even outside her area of expertise.
In one and a half years, she has had two interviews and no offers.
It's pretty clear that her resume is almost immediately rejected because she isn't a U.S. citizen (she's a permanent resident) and because her experience is with "foreign" companies.
I have a friend who studied Business (with a concentration on Entrepreneurship) at Notre Dame (2nd best in Business according to BusinessWeek). While at Notre Dame he could not get decent internships at big companies because these companies either had a policy to not hire foreigners (at least not for internships), or because it was such a hassle that they'd rather not. Many of those companies were also in the process of shutting down their "immigration departments" because it's become increasingly difficult to get visas for their foreign workers, hence for them it's pretty much like playing the lottery when they apply for an H1B visa for one of their workers, and having dedicated staff for this very uncertain process is a big cost.
While finishing school, my friend was unable to secure a job with any company, he had an offer from PWC, but it was finally withdrawn, while his friends were hired. At the end he decided coming back to Chile, where he now has a job at one of the top VCs in the country.
This is only one case, but I think it represents what a lot of immigrants in the US have been experiencing.
Good article. The EE Phd mentioned in the beginning sounds like a very skilled person, and it's hard to replace someone like that. Hard to see how that guy is taking a job away from anyone, and he is likely creating wealth and jobs for others. We want him here, no doubt.
One factor - I was once a PhD student in engineering at Berkeley, and in my opinion, it's much a harder path than a JD or MBA, more uncertainty and lower pay. While the "100K" salary the EE PhD in the article was earning isn't bad, it's actually quite low compared to other professional degrees that can be earned in half or even a third of the time (with less rigorous undergrad preparation to boot). To me, there's little doubt that universities and employers use the desire for a green card to keep these spots filled without becoming "competitive" with other professional degree programs (the RAND institute recently did a study that supports this view).
What to do? Well, maybe we should just set a minimum pay rate for a green card. Perhaps a company needs to commit to a high salary to prove the worker really is highly skilled. Given that starting salaries at top law firms exceed $150 for a three year degree, I don't think that 100K is quite enough for the company to claim that the worker is "critical" and "can't be found anywhere". So I think this salary threshold needs to be very, very high.
If they were paying him 200K, I'd have no trouble granting the green card, because then the absence of americans would be easier to attribute to a "skills gap" rather than a desire to pay salaries that are not competitive with other (often easier) career choices.
So where are immigrants concentrating themselves if not the US? I am not looking for the response, 'They are going home,' but surely the intelligentsia is concentrating in some area so where is it? Is it just that the distribution is more even with respect to country (in which case the US would still be the lead) or is there a new, hot area (maybe parts of europe)?
This really bothers me. It's like the U.S. is a football team, and we train one of these immigrants; we make them hit the gym, show them the ropes, teach them the intracacies of the game, let them know some good techniques, then say, "Now get out of here, we don't want you to play for our team."
Maybe Obama will be smart enough to start handing out green cards to anybody with an H1B who can hold a permanent position for two years. I'd much rather employ somebody who's motivated enough to leave their home country in search of opportunity.
I am jumping through hoops right now so that I can work for a startup based on technology I developed (that has already created 3 jobs).
It's pretty frustrating.
'Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Senate immigration subcommittee, said in June that U.S. policy will aim to "encourage the world's best and brightest individuals to come to the U.S. and create the new technologies and businesses…but must discourage businesses from using our immigration laws as a means to obtain temporary and less expensive foreign labor."'
I'm curious for the opinion of Hacker News readers on Schumer's statement. Do you agree or disagree that this should be the goal for U.S. immigration policy? (and why)
I think a way to improve the situation would be to change the way income-tax scales. To citizens, it increases percentage as wage increases, scaling exponentially. To foreigners, it could scale sub-linear-ly, by lowering percentage as wage increases. This would encourage foreigners to take high-paying jobs in the US, but not low-paying ones.
Is this situation better in other countries?
The brain drain from developing countries was aggravating their problems. Now as the the US struggles itself those nations that need experts the most can keep them.