Save Humanity: Expand H-1B Visas

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said yesterday that humans will need to create space colonies to survive in the future because of inevitable man-made disasters on Earth (like global warming).

That seems like a pretty big project that we might want to get the best minds in the world working on ASAP.

Or just as importantly, creating the next iPod that has a battery life longer than a cross-country flight.

Either way, we need the brainiacs get on these and other important missions pronto.  And, it shouldn't matter if they are from India, Ireland or Estonia.  Yet, politics is getting in the way of progress. Top Wall Street Journal columnist Alan Murray comments today after the jump:

As Washington bogs down in debates over whether to build a wall on the Mexican border or grant amnesty to illegal immigrants, the plight of skilled workers has become a sideshow. Current law limits so-called H-1B temporary visas for highly skilled workers to 65,000 a year, plus an additional 20,000 for those who have earned advanced degrees from U.S. educational institutions. It also limits permanent visas for highly skilled workers. The limits are favored by labor unions and others who fear foreign workers may take jobs from U.S. citizens -- although tech companies say the visas are used only for jobs when qualified Americans are unavailable.

With the tech industry booming, those caps are biting: the H-1B visas for 2007 are already spoken for.

Murray quotes the chairmen of Intel, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems who couldn't agree more...

The fact that leading-edge companies like Intel, Microsoft and Sun want to do their leading-edge work within U.S. borders certainly contributes to that American advantage. And it's hard to imagine why the U.S. government would want it any other way.

A smarter national policy, says Mr. (Craig) Barrett (of Intel), would be to staple a green card to the diploma of every foreigner who earns an advanced degree in the U.S.

Mr. (Scott) McNealy (of Sun) goes further: "Why aren't we telling people, if you want an education in our universities, you must stay and work here for 15 years after you graduate?"

"Most of these guys don't end up in jail," Mr. McNealy says, warming to his argument. "They don't end up on entitlements. They tend to pay taxes. They keep their yards nice and clean. They drive Priuses. They recycle."

"What are we thinking?" he adds.

We're clearly not thinking about that really big ladder that we'll someday need to get to the Moon.

Comments

[BH]

The H-1b program is merely an American worker replacement program. Between 2000 and today, hundreds of thousands of competent, highly skilled US workers were let go, while during the same time hundreds of thousands of foreign workers were brought in to take their places.
Check out the truth for yourself:
1. Jobs aplenty going unfilled: http://www.redherring.com/Article.as...arket+Stumbles
2. H-1bs are not cheap labor, safeguards prevent that: http://beta.h1b.info/lca_job_list.php?page=15&name=INFOSYS+TECHNOLOGIES +LTD&company=&city=&county=&state=&year=ALL&sort=
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/...reality_1.html
3. American workers always have the first shot at American jobs before they are offered to H-1bs: http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/...reality_1.html
http://www.programmersguild.org/docs...rs_or_not.html
4. Only foreign workers with esoteric, hard-to-find skills are brought in to do jobs Americans can't. Otherwise, they hire an American.
http://www.aea.org/lobby2004.htm

How about we hire back the ones we let go, who made us a technological world leader in the first place? Many of them are still scrounging for survival jobs after being replaced with foreign workers.

[BH]

Ooops, some links above got broken:
http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=17252&hed=IT+Labor+Market+Stumbles
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/08/23/35OPreality_1.html
http://www.programmersguild.org/docs/intel_hiring_software_engineers_or_not.html

[Prower]

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