Yesterday, I wrote about how two out of three Americans,
awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine this year, were immigrants to this
country. Well today, as I perused the Times again, I came across an article
on this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics recipients. It turns out that two out of
three of the Physics winners are also immigrants. Dr. Kao was born in Shanghai
and Dr. Boyle in Canada.
Imagine a scenario today, where a Chinese or Canadian engineer
had a job opportunity in the US. Chances are that their prospective employer
would attempt to sponsor them for an H1B visa, an employer-sponsored visa for
positions requiring advanced degrees. But there is a limited number of these
every year, and typically the H1B pool is vastly oversubscribed. So maybe
today’s Dr. Kao or Dr. Boyle can’t even enter the country to work.
Or perhaps they get lucky, and get that coveted H1B.
Despite the fact that neither their spouse nor their children are able to work
under their H4 status, they decide to emigrate anyway. The 6 year clock starts
ticking, and unless they get a Green Card during this period, they’ll have to
move elsewhere at the end of this period – earlier if they lose their position
with their employer sponsor.
Once again, they’re amongst the lucky ones, whose employer
agrees to the expense and administrative overhead and begins the
employer-sponsored Green Card process. Before the application is actually
submitted, the company needs to submit a job description, with a minimum set of
qualifications required to do the job, and have this approved by the Department
of Labor. Once signed off by this Department, the position needs to be posted
internally and advertised externally for a period of 30 days, during which time
the employer is required to accept applications for the job.
If, during this phase, an American applies, who meets the
minimum level of qualifications, the potential applicant is deemed to be taking
a job away from an American and cannot apply for his/her Green Card, meaning
that once his H1B 6 year clock runs down, he/she must leave the country.
It’s very easy to imagine tomorrow’s potential Nobel Prize
winners being put through this process today. Does anybody believe that
employment is zero-sum? That there is a finite number of positions available?
Or is it more enlightened to acknowledge that scientists, engineers and
entrepreneurs are creators of jobs, and that their desire to immigrate to
America should be embraced and encouraged.
There’s way too much friction in the system today. Brains
abhor friction, and in a flat world, can just as easily be located elsewhere.
When the Nobel Prize winners in 2040 are all in China, Russia, India or Korea,
it will be too late for America, and it need only to look back a few decades
and bemoan its own immigration policies.
That’s my .02!
Martin Suter
(martin.suter at iplicensing.net)
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