Fresh Ideas for the Immigration Debate

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"There are obviously great advantages to the winners socioeconomically to have immigrants doing work cheaply," says Samuelson.

This isn't necessarily an argument against immigration; rather, it makes the point that immigration policies need to differentiate between the people who benefit and the people who suffer.

Don't Overlook the Highly Skilled

Most of the attention in the immigration debate has been focused on the low-skill workers who enter the country illegally. In contrast, the programs for high-skill workers are getting relatively little attention. There are, however, issues that experts say need to be addressed with the policies for both temporary and permanent high-skill workers.

One example is the H-1B program, which are temporary visas allocated to people with specialized skills. Frustration with the program has been building in recent years because there's a cap of 65,000 visas (with some exceptions). This is down from 195,000 a few years ago, and U.S. companies haven't been able to hire as many foreign workers as they would like. The tech industry wants to boost that number, and President Bush has said he fully supports an increase. "We hit the cap in May almost two months after the applications opened," says Oracle's Hoffman, who is also a spokesman for Compete America, a group that advocates for more high-tech worker visas. Compete America's other members include Intel (INTC), Motorola (MOT), Texas Instruments (TXN), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

But very little attention has been given to the criteria for H-1B visas. While the program was set up to help tech companies and others hire the workers they need, it appears that many of the visas are not being used to that end. The most active applicants for the visas are outsourcing companies, particularly those based in India, including Infosys Technologies (INFY) and Wipro (WIT). Critics say the outsourcing firms may be using the H-1B program to facilitate the outsourcing of U.S. jobs to other countries (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/8/07, "Work Visas May Work Against the U.S.").

In addition, there have been reports that some companies pay H-1B workers lower wages than their American counterparts. This is prohibited under the program's rules, but companies that participate are rarely, if ever, audited. "If you had no chance of being audited by the IRS, how honest would you be on your taxes?" says Ron Hira, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute and author of Outsourcing America. "I think you can devise policies to address this issue."

It's not just the temporary work visas for high-skill employees. Those seeking green cards often have to wait years while they're required to stay with the same employer in the same job. On Feb. 25, Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates wrote an editorial in The Washington Post on how to keep the U.S. competitive. A key point was making it easier for U.S. companies to retain highly skilled professionals from other countries. "These employees are vital to U.S. competitiveness, and we should welcome their contribution to U.S. economic growth," Gates wrote.

Do We Need Comprehensive Reform?

Throughout Washington, politicians and their staffs are focused on comprehensive immigration reform, a push to address all the issues at once.