Goodbye Chang, So Long Singh

America's real immigration problem will soon be returning emigres.

Shikha Dalmia | March 23, 2009

This country's floundering economy has never needed the world's best and brightest immigrants more—but, unfortunately, these immigrants have never been interested in this country less. So this would be a good time to roll out the red carpet and stand garland in hand on America's shores to usher in new talent. Far from taking away American jobs (as restrictionists argue), this talent creates more jobs by growing the economic pie.

Yet Congress last month decided to thumb its nose at immigrants who can fill top jobs in the high-tech sector. It added to the "stimulus" bill a provision that will effectively put foreign workers off limits to financial companies that receive bailout money through the Toxic Asset Recovery Program (TARP). The provision was sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa). Grassley in particular has been acting like he has a new mission from god to chase away foreign high-tech workers who enter the country on temporary visas. These work permits are called H1-B visas and are specifically designed for "workers in short supply."

Besides making it virtually impossible for TARP companies to hire H1-Bs, Grassley has also been sending letters to Microsoft, a non-TARP company, telling it to fire temporary foreign workers ahead of Americans. But like other forms of protectionism, this exercise in nativist labor policy won't "stimulate" America's economy. If anything, it will work to prolong the recession by keeping out precisely the sort of folks who can rejuvenate the economy.

Vivek Wadhwa, a researcher at Duke University, notes that even before the current downturn, a steady stream of highly skilled immigrants from India and China—the major donor countries—had been returning home. In fact, Indian and Chinese companies have been reporting a seven to tenfold increase in job applications from their émigrés in the last five years or so.

According to a recent study that Wadhwa coauthored with Harvard University's Richard Freeman and University of California at Berkeley's AnnaLee Saxenian, most of the people are not leaving because they are having a tough time getting by in the United States. Rather, they are virtually the best of the best with excellent prospects in the United States.

Most of the returning emigres are in their 30s and over half hold advanced degrees in management, technology, or science from excellent schools. That puts them "at the very top of the educational distribution" even for this highly educated cohort. Most stunning of all, 27 percent of the Indians and 34 percent of the Chinese who opted to return home had already obtained green cards or citizenship.

Even a decade or so ago, giving that up to return back to India or China would have seemed pure lunacy. No more.

What's changed? Thanks to economic liberalization, professional opportunities have improved dramatically for these immigrants in their home countries. Over half of the Indian and Chinese polled by Wadhwa said that, relative to cost of living, they were making more money upon returning home compared to what they were earning in the United States.

This means it is no longer necessary for high-tech workers to tear up their roots and make an alien land their home for the sake of economic advancement. They can live the American dream in their own country close to family and friends.

This will have profound implications for America's ability to hang on to its immigrant talent in the coming years. Migration patterns naturally ebb and flow with the business cycle, picking up during a boom and dropping during a recession.

But the problem of reverse brain drain is likely to be particularly acute for America during this downturn given that India's and China's economies are so far on track to outperform the United States'. Despite the global recession, according to the IMF, China is expected to grow 6.7 percent and India 5 percent this year. If this prediction pans out, Indians and Chinese will sprint—not stroll—to the exit doors in coming months.

This would be genuinely unfortunate since people who have willingly uprooted themselves from their homes to travel across oceans and establish themselves on foreign soil are natural risk takers. They are precisely the kind of folks America needs to help jumpstart its sputtering economic engine and create new jobs by starting businesses. It is not a coincidence that one in two companies in Silicon Valley has been founded by immigrants. If America is unable to replenish its crop of immigrants, the next Silicon Valley won't be in California—it'll be in Beijing or Bangalore.

Sens. Sanders and Grassley's crusade against H1-B workers is thus both economically illiterate and outdated. Their stimulus provision, incidentally, was inspired by a single, scurrilous Associated Press story that found that the top 12 banks receiving TARP money had in the six years before the economic downturn filed 20,000 or so H1-B applications—which makes foreign workers anywhere from a whopping 0 percent to 0.74 percent of their total workforce.

Before slamming the door on foreign workers, Sanders and Grassley might have checked to see if there were throngs of crowds still clamoring on the other side. America can no longer count on gifted immigrants automatically flocking to its shore. It will have to compete for them, just like every other country.

Instead of posting "No Entry" signs, Congress should be rolling out the welcome mat. It can begin by scrapping the annual H1-B visa cap. Set at 85,000, this cap is so low that for the last few years it has been getting filled within days after immigration authorities begin accepting applications on April 1, leaving tens of thousands of potential high-tech immigrants in the lurch for the rest of the year.

Beyond that, it should put in place a fast track process that makes these visas available within weeks—not the months and years as is currently the case—of the application. That is what nearly every other industrialized country which is experiencing declining interest by high-tech immigrants is doing.

Otherwise, America, the proud nation of immigrants, might well be the big loser in the global race for talent—hardly something to celebrate.

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation.

Comments

|3.23.09 @ 6:27PM|#

America's floundering economy has never needed the world's best and brightest immigrants more.

Do you, indeed? Because what I am hearing from so-called "conservatives" is that immigrants are undeserving leeches that rob Americans from the limited "pool" of jobs.

|3.23.09 @ 6:39PM|#

Seems to be a lot of physicians returning to Canada from the States lately. I expect this will accelerate as things get worse "south" of the border.

JW Gacy|3.23.09 @ 7:05PM|#

I think FTG is a bit lost.

Welcome, visitor. We are the libertarians. We mean you no harm.

Gimme Back My Dog|3.23.09 @ 7:06PM|#

the next Silicon Valley won't be in California-it'll be in Beijing or Bangalore.

OK, I'll give you Bangalore, but Shanghai is the Chinese Silicon Valley.

No Name Guy|3.23.09 @ 7:14PM|#

Congressmen and Senators - the best qualified bunch to determine where and whom I should hire for my business. Yup..... what a bunch of dumbasses.

|3.23.09 @ 7:16PM|#

That sign should read "protect US slackers".
If there was actually a pool of American kids willing to spend 10 years in school getting advanced degrees in scentific fields, we wouldn't be trying to import them from other countries.

What Americans really want, but noone will admit, is their version of the "workers paradise". A place where you can party through your teens and twenties, and then spend the rest of you life surfing the web and jerking off all day.

|3.23.09 @ 7:20PM|#

Grassley the Asshat is an excellent example of why I no longer say I'm a Republican leaning libertarian.

|3.23.09 @ 7:23PM|#

I am a systems / network administrator with 11 years of IT experience. I have taken many tests and achieved many professional certifications. I do not party and "surf the web all day."

I've worked my butt off in this bleeping industry. My current salary is about $43,000. I am sick and tired of hearing about how this country has a tech shortage.

You can talk to lots of people who work in this industry. Many have already left this industry. Many more would like to leave, including myself. The last thing I want to see is some propaganda about how there is a "shortage of talent" in technical fields. It is a myth.

|3.23.09 @ 7:30PM|#

Bill Gates should have every single one of his employees donate $2300 to whoever is Grassley's next primary opponent. If the asshat survives that, they should double down on the Dem running against him in the general.

Asshat voted for TARP too.
And NCLB.
And the Patriot Act.

Fuck him and his farm subsidy leech constituents.

|3.23.09 @ 7:33PM|#

The last thing I want to see is some propaganda about how there is a "shortage of talent" in technical fields. It is a myth.

What they mean is a shortage of talent willing to work for half your wage. Anybody with the presence of mind to google for tech industry layoffs wouldn't have even bothered to click on this article.

|3.23.09 @ 7:33PM|#

You can talk to lots of people who work in this industry. Many have already left this industry. Many more would like to leave, including myself. The last thing I want to see is some propaganda about how there is a "shortage of talent" in technical fields. It is a myth.

Can't compete huh? You'd be making 95K with full bennies (no deductable health insurance, company car, BJs from the steno pool) if it weren't for those damned furriners?

|3.23.09 @ 7:35PM|#

If there's not a shortage of talent, why is it that the majority of engineering graduate students and a sizable percentage of undergrads are foreign nationals?

I have taken many tests and achieved many professional certifications.

Do you have a college degree? I can see only earning $43K if you only have certs. Maybe you should be working on that diploma part time.

!!!|3.23.09 @ 7:38PM|#

We should open Congressional positions up to people with H1-B visas. We might get some talent in there.

Big Cat Kahuna|3.23.09 @ 7:39PM|#

The last thing I want to see is some propaganda about how there is a "shortage of talent" in technical fields.

I am not sure that a shortage of tech-talent--aside from its status as myth or not--is the central issue. What I got from the article is that it is an influx of entrepreneurial skills, specifically high-tech entrepreneurial skills that are at risk here. That seems like something we would always want.

It does seem that we have reached a point were legislation is primarily a campaign tool.

|3.23.09 @ 7:47PM|#

At the top there is always a shortage of technical talent. That's pretty much the definition of "the top".

Doing anything to discourage these people from working as closely as possible with US enterprises and US workers is way, way, way beyond stupidity.

|3.23.09 @ 7:54PM|#

Raymond, what is your education background? When I lived in the States, I went in on a salary over a bit over $60k and left on around $90k after 3.5 years. That's base salary, no benefits factored in. I had less experience than you at the time that this happened. It was also immediately after the tech wreck. Now granted it was on an L1 visa (intra-company transfer), so YMMV, but immigrant workers with any level of experience hardly undercut the average American tech worker. I have a science/engineering degree and few in the way of certifications.

squelch |3.23.09 @ 7:58PM|#

Isn't it nice to know you live in a country where even if you obviously don't know fuck-all about the conditions in a particular industry, you're still free to express an opinion about what it needs and get paid for it?

Gimme Back My Dog|3.23.09 @ 8:00PM|#

MikeP is right on. The top people will always get the jobs. We cannot control that. What we can control is whether those people are sitting in an office in Sunnyvale or Shanghai.

If anything, MikeP should have added a couple of more "way"s in there. Right now, we have a slight advantage in that countries like China and India do not have older, experienced engineers to lead their army of young, eager engineers. By driving the H1-Bs back to their home country, we are giving them the tools to catch up with us.

Cabeza De Vaca|3.23.09 @ 8:12PM|#

Sadly, Grassley is the most popular politician in the state of Iowa. He always wins re-election by a landslide & has said he wants to stay in office til he dies.

|3.23.09 @ 8:21PM|#

Foreigners are not the only ones bailing out. Check out "America's Berlin Wall" at Economist.com

http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11554721

|3.23.09 @ 9:00PM|#

Squelch, who was that directed at?

jtuf|3.23.09 @ 10:02PM|#

I think the strongest arguement for allowing immigration is moral, not economic. Trying to address macroeconomic trends through the federal immigration policy is just another form of centralized economic planning. Both the immigrant and the empolyer volunarily choose the relationship because they believe they will benefit from it. I think that's reason enough to grant the visa. So, while my logic differs, I agree with your conclusion, Dalmia. Let's increase the visa slots availible and streamline the process. While we're at it, let's tripple the immigration quotas.

|3.23.09 @ 11:47PM|#

Why is it that the majority of engineering graduate students and a sizable percentage of undergrads are foreign nationals?

1) Public schools are retard factories. 2) In the past there was little point to an engineering career. You would be better off being a postman, or any civil service job, after high school all things, including risk of failure taken into acount. 3) Poor prospects for engineers also means they have fewer children so their skills are less likely to be transfered to the next generation of students. This may be changing as the salaries of firemen in Vallejo, ca for example has become an issue.

BTW, Mayo Clinic seems to be in a deal to send patients to Iceland. So who needs immigrants when you go there.

Here's anidea, why not allow individual states the right to issue h1 visas that would only be valid in their state. The state would have to bond each individual against working in another state.

Unreasonable|3.23.09 @ 11:57PM|#

This has gotten to the point of being a total joke. We don't have enough jobs to employ the native talent, but you still don't think we have enough people here, people whose presence is certainly not mandated by any market demand. If we don't have enough people now, how about telling us what number of people would be enough?

Note: "Let the market determine the number" isn't an answer. If the market can't provide employment for the qualified people already here, it certainly isn't demanding any additional people. Since apparently you believe we need immigration when the market demands it, and we need immigration even when the market doesn't demand it, why don't you come clean and give us the number of people you think are optimal? Do you want to keep importing people until we're crowded enough that people are falling into the oceans, or what?

Orange Line Special|3.24.09 @ 12:06AM|#

Look, I'm not going to waste my time bothering to read her drivel, because I know based on her past drivel that she's wrong.

So, I'll just point out that if anyone wants to do something, go ask a stimulus supporter this question about illegal aliens getting stimulus jobs on video. Really press them on the point, and then upload their response to Youtube.

The goal is to have an impact on their career and send a message to the others. If we get even just one instance of something like this, it will have a very helpful effect.

|3.24.09 @ 1:12AM|#

Information technology is quite different from engineering. Stats already show that most people don't stay in IT past 35 or 40. If you talk to people to work in the industry, they will confirm this.

People get to the top by getting good experience, because that is where you learn everything. Anybody who is at the top has told me that. A CCIE said it simply: "Get access to gear."

What do you think happens to a baseball player's skills if he sits on the bench all the time? It's the same principle in IT.

IT is one of the few professions, however, that has a bunch of propaganda machines claiming that there is a shortage of good people. There is not.

These economic stimulus packages are a scam. Back in 2004, Austin (TX) gave a bunch of incentives to Home Depot to move their IT data center here. The package was contingent on Home Depot hiring local people. I know for a fact that Home Depot did not do that, as I met one person that they had moved for a job here. I met him when he was at a job group because they had laid him off.

JW Gacy|3.24.09 @ 1:15AM|#

Unreasonable, these foreigners are the ones creating jobs. Despite what your Demopublican overlords may have told you, there isn't a big jar of jobs that the government creates for us to divy up.

More people --> more commerce --> more jobs / capita.

PFJ|3.24.09 @ 1:45AM|#

Raymond: If there is no shortage, then why not let the immigrants in? If there is no shortage, they'll stay at home regardless.

Unreasonable|3.24.09 @ 1:47AM|#

Unreasonable, these foreigners are the ones creating jobs.

They are? Would you like to provide some stats on that? I'll provide you with some. Here's a short list of some companies and the number of H1-B's they employed last year.

Microsoft: 4437
IBM: 1413
Hewlett-Packard: 520
Apple Computer: 291

You tell me - which of these companies has produced the most innovative products over the last decade? By the way - unlike the other three, Apple doesn't offshore their product development - it's all done in Cupertino, Ca. Also, when you call their tech support, you'll inevitably get connected with someone who speaks English.

So Reason doesn't think the native talent is sufficiently innovative and entrepreneurial? I'd say Reason needs to pull their collective heads out of their asses.

|3.24.09 @ 2:50AM|#

The youngest of the companies you listed is 33 years old next month. The oldest, and the most innovative as measured by most patents year in and year out, is 120 years old with 400,000 employees.

While it is true that IBM may provide the plurality of innovation for a single company -- mostly because they are huge and have broad research interests -- the majority of innovations come from small, young companies: many or most of which are founded by foreign born engineers.

Incidentally, those innovative and entrepreneurial early stage companies are at an extreme disadvantage to the large established companies you named because only the latter can afford the legal expense and attention to capture many of the far too limited number of H-1B visas available every year.

|3.24.09 @ 2:51AM|#

So Reason doesn't think the native talent is sufficiently innovative and entrepreneurial?

I think the rule is that no set of people is "sufficiently" innovative and entrepreneurial. Those characteristics are always in short supply, yet those are exactly the characteristics that, when allowed to flourish, bring the greatest wealth to the greatest number of people.

Turning away the innovative and entrepreneurial of the world from the most productive economy on the planet is madness -- and exceedingly self-destructive.

Unreasonable|3.24.09 @ 3:03AM|#

The oldest, and the most innovative as measured by most patents year in and year out, is 120 years old with 400,000 employees.

As measured by patents? And how many of those patents are you seeing turned into products? You've heard of "nuisance patents" haven't you?

While it is true that IBM may provide the plurality of innovation for a single company -- mostly because they are huge and have broad research interests

They are? I'll tell you what - name a list of original products they've introduced in the last decade that they didn't buy, but were a product of their original research.

the majority of innovations come from small, young companies: many or most of which are founded by foreign born engineers.

Oh? Name them.

Incidentally, those innovative and entrepreneurial early stage companies are at an extreme disadvantage to the large established companies you named because only the latter can afford the legal expense and attention to capture many of the far too limited number of H-1B visas available every year.

Maybe you'd like to explain why there's an inverse relationship between the number of H1-B employees and the original products introduced by those companies I listed?

|3.24.09 @ 3:37AM|#

You've heard of "nuisance patents" haven't you?

Actually, IBM is well known for the anti-nuisance patent. They patent things so that no one will hold it over them, and then generally allow anyone free use of the patents.

Oh? Name them.

Because they are many and small, it would be tedious to go and look for them. There is extreme selection bias inherent in your list of four big-name companies. You name the companies you know. The companies you know are big.

But, just as a flavor, the three most successful internet firms to date -- Google, Yahoo, and Ebay -- were all co-founded by foreign-born high tech workers.

Maybe you'd like to explain why there's an inverse relationship between the number of H1-B employees and the original products introduced by those companies I listed?

Presuming you think Apple is the victor by your metrics, there is an inverse relationship between the total number of employees and the original products introduced. IBM has 400,000 employees, HP 320,000, Microsoft 89,000, and Apple 35,000.

So what you are telling me is that Americans are clearly not innovative because the company that employs the fewest of them has the most "original" products?

|3.24.09 @ 3:40AM|#

FTG,

Has anyone introduced you to the italics tag yet, or did the person who does that go back to India?

|3.24.09 @ 4:36AM|#

Can't compete huh? You'd be making 95K with full bennies (no deductable health insurance, company car, BJs from the steno pool) if it weren't for those damned furriners?

What an asshole comment.

Sergey Brin|3.24.09 @ 4:38AM|#

What a country!

|3.24.09 @ 5:49AM|#

As a foreign student paying foreign student tuition (which is over three times more than locals pay) plus all the other international "fees" I can understand why campuses are increasingly foreign. And it has absolutely nothing to do with talent or intelligence (there are dumbasses representing every continent). It's simply a cash cow. They're selling work visas via tuition. A major reason to why foreign students become foreign workers is because they aggressively job hunt. I'm talking doing dozens of interviews & applications all over the country. The incentive is huge- either find work in the time allotted by a student visa and subsequently get a work visa & make US wages or go home and more than likely earn a lot less (for similar work). Long winded answer but it really is the process.

Unreasonable|3.24.09 @ 6:07AM|#

Presuming you think Apple is the victor by your metrics, there is an inverse relationship between the total number of employees and the original products introduced. IBM has 400,000 employees, HP 320,000, Microsoft 89,000, and Apple 35,000.

Untrue. Remember, unlike the other vendors, Apple does product development strictly in the US. The H1-B's only account for American based workers, not total foreign workers. Microsoft has the largest percentage of H1-B's and has been milking it's Windows/Office franchise for 20+ years, with no other notable successes. HP, the 2nd largest company with the 2nd least number of H1-B's, has superseded IBM as the world's largest supplier of IT equipment, and has also introduced more new products. IBM, the 2nd largest employer of H1-B's, has introduced no new product lines in 15 years that haven't either been bought or developed in collaboration with other companies (PowerPC with Motorola, and Cell with Sony). The correlation of innovation to percentage of H1-B workers remains.

THE LONEWACKO FAN CLUB|3.24.09 @ 7:06AM|#

Orange Line Special | March 24, 2009, 12:06am | #

Look, I'm not going to waste my time bothering to read her drivel, because I know based on her past drivel that she's wrong.

Ahh, sweet, sweet irony.

|3.24.09 @ 11:25AM|#

Remember, unlike the other vendors, Apple does product development strictly in the US. The H1-B's only account for American based workers, not total foreign workers.

First, unless you can cite figures showing that increasingly large majorities of the employees of those companies work overseas, the point still stands that the company with the fewest Americans working at it is, in your eyes, the most innovative.

Second, even when product development is done overseas, the proportion of innovative research and advanced development is much higher in the US.

Finally, your impression that Apple is the most innovative is very biased. Apple is a consumer goods company. IBM divested itself of consumer goods such as PCs and disks, preferring to serve businesses with large systems, services, and basic technologies. Perhaps your metric of innovation is, "things that can be bought at Best Buy that couldn't be bought there 10 years ago," but that misses a lot of innovations in complex systems, magnetic materials, nanotechnology, semiconductor processes, etc.

Federale|3.24.09 @ 12:04PM|#

Unfortuneately the immigrants are not the best and brightest, but those who will work for wages that are lower than that earned by American workers. Study after study showed that most H1Bs have just a BA and are paid less than their American or legal permanent resident counterparts. If they were so smart and important, their wages would be significantly higher than non-H1B workers. Therefore there is no evidence that they contribute anything more than other workers. In the end, it is the wages offered by companies that attract the best workers. Obviously if they are leaving for a higher standard of living in their home countries, again, the fact that the companies refuse to pay the salaries necessary to keep them shows that they are not that important to the company.

In the end, it is all about wages and the standard of living they provide. If Microsoft wants the best and brightest, pay the salary necessary. However, don't tell me that H1Bs are the best and brightest, if their wages are significantly lower than non-H1Bs. And don't tell me that the companies who need them so desparately will let them leave because they can obtain a higher standard of living back home.

You contradict yourself.

|3.24.09 @ 12:16PM|#

Study after study showed that most H1Bs have just a BA and are paid less than their American or legal permanent resident counterparts.

Got a cite? In my experience this is not the case.

|3.24.09 @ 12:53PM|#

Incidentally, if your point is that the H-1B quota and employment mandates should be eliminated so the visa can't be held over the employee to pressure him into a lower salary, I wholeheartedly agree.

|3.24.09 @ 1:09PM|#

keep your eye on the ball, people. the objective here is to destroy the american middle class so that elites like ourselves can be secure in our domination of the proles, and in order to do this, we need to bring in foreign competition to depress wages in the tech sector while we enhance shareholder value. in aid of this objective, we must mock and deride nativists every chance we get.

|3.24.09 @ 3:15PM|#

Actually, a lot of companies like IBM have, in fact, restorted to off-shoring technical work to places like India because they can't get enough H1-Bs.

I know someone who works for IBM as a project manager. His entire job is virtual. There's an office he visits perhaps once a week. A large percentage of the people he works with are physically located in India.
It's a hassle because of the time-difference, but that's what they do.

What's especially stupid about trying to keep foreign workers from competing with Americans is that IT is the easiest work to outsource. You can transmit data around the world instantaneously. You can't do that with manfactured goods. Any IT worker that is worried about foreigners stealing their jobs and tries to use immigration policy as a barrier is a flipping idiot.

Unreasonable|3.24.09 @ 4:58PM|#

First, unless you can cite figures showing that increasingly large majorities of the employees of those companies work overseas, the point still stands that the company with the fewest Americans working at it is, in your eyes, the most innovative.

As a matter of fact, I can cite those figures.

Actually, a lot of companies like IBM have, in fact, restorted to off-shoring technical work to places like India because they can't get enough H1-Bs.

That's a long line of bullshit. First off, a good deal of their labor in the US is now 3rd party contractors - and they couldn't care less about where the contracting outfits are getting their labor. Second off, there's less of a cost advantage to importing H1-B's than there is to offshoring entirely - they may be able get away with paying the H1-B's less than native workers, but they can pay them less still in their native countries. Much less. Third, the strategic direction of a number of these companies is moving operations offshore when possible - even the H1-B's are getting laid off.

|3.24.09 @ 5:06PM|#

As a matter of fact, I can cite those figures.

115,000 >> 35,000

abprosper|3.24.09 @ 5:30PM|#

I am cultural libertarian but an economic populist so you can be pretty sure I will find the economic liberalism espoused here to be very disagreeable at best

Really there are three issues in play, none of them have anything to do with the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants

#1 The US education system is not producing a lot of people who can read much less tons of engineers and I.T. geeks.

#2 Anyone who manages to get through school and who is qualified to be in IT had a whopping big debt load to deal with. A cheap state subsidized school in say California means $500 a month out the door for years and years. Its hurts in any job market

#3 IT companies don't want to pay the real costs of things so they pay off Congress to get more immigrants in the door and/or outsource.

Its all about money for a few but not for many --

The real solution is the hard one, fix the schools, make college cheap or free, restrict outsourcing and let in the best and brightest only . Thats not easy

|3.24.09 @ 6:11PM|#

Let's look at the flip side of this... Many of these "immigrants" and "US Citizens" could have left America before they got the green cards or US Citizenship. But most of them wait till they have more "US Citizens" or till they get their own citizenship or green cards before they go. Why???????? So that they can return at their pleasure without visa problems whenever they want. What happens when the babies grow up to be 18 years of age. They all want to be Americans not Indians. The parents no longer need sponorship as they are already US Citizens. These people who go back don't get the same benefits as US Citizens by the Indian government or the companies they work when the "retire". However, since American will hand out Medicare and Social Security Benefits they would rather come back and enjoy their golden years in America. I know people who are doing this. Some of these people have not contributed their 40 quarters of Social Security but still qualify for something which is better than only their life savings in India. This is one of the factors contributing to overburdening of the Healthcare system in this country as well as the Medicare and Social Security System.

|3.24.09 @ 8:36PM|#

The real issue with professional visas is that companies are unwilling to pay what it would cost for a native American to do a given job. This is about greed on the part of business owners.

The reality is that it is not worth it financially to go through 4 years of undergrad, two years of graduate school, what is essentially another two to four years of journeymen engineering jobs to become a certified professional engineer for a job that pays $70K USD per year.

For the same amount of effort you could become an MD making $150K USD per year.

This is just an example of the US's dysfunctional immigration system at work again.

Just as illegal immigration has basically destroyed the trades that used to employ working class people in the US, the visa waiver program is discouraging higher end workers from pursuing certain fields of study as well.

Getting a degree in public policy is a hell of a lot easier than mechanical engineering. If it pays the same, or more, as a city manager why go through the effort?

A T|3.25.09 @ 3:58PM|#

Hey peacedog, there was a time when there was unrestricted immigration, milions of unskilled workers pouring in, tens of thousands of skilled profesionals (mainly from Europe), and still there were trades, the midlle class and pleanty of jobs and opportunities. Everybody benefited.
Amercan companies are gready for not paying "what it would cost" for local talent...then you are gready whenever you choose to buy cheap imports rather then an expensive local product.
And I don't get this blame on people who work for less. They do live in the US of A with those wages, don't they? Why can't you do the same? Do professionals from China and India working in America live off in hutts and a meal of rice a day?