Let's Keep Skilled Immigrants in the U.S.

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Our research showed that the percentage of foreign nationals contributing to U.S. international patent applications—the ones that give us a global edge—increased 331% in eight years. This is a welcome contribution to U.S. intellectual property. The problem is that many of the engineers and scientists filing these patents, like Kholodar, may have to leave the country—and take their knowledge and experience with them. In 2006, one in four U.S. international patent applications had foreign national authors or co-authors. The increases correspond to the increasing numbers of foreign students here on visas that expire shortly after graduation and H-1B-holding workers in the U.S.

Peculiar Quotas

Immigration data show another brewing problem. The current wait time for skilled immigrants from India and China to be granted permanent residence stands at nearly six years. In other words, U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services is backlogged, currently processing applications for those who applied for permanent residence in 2001. Additionally, there's a yearly limit of around 140,000 employment-based permanent-resident visas for skilled workers. And to further complicate things, no more than 7% of the visas are allowed to be allocated to immigrants from any one country.

Immigration attorney Murali Bashyam of lawfirm Bashyam & Spiro explains that the per-country limitation serves to avoid monopolization of visa numbers by applicants from any one country. Under current law, no more than 9,800 permanent resident visas can be issued to employment-based immigrants (including their spouses and children) from any single country.

However, he says this policy bears no relation to demand: Countries with large populations or a large number of emigrants have the same quota as countries with small populations or low emigration rates. We allow as many skilled immigrants from Russia and India as we do from Iceland and Senegal.

So, we're now setting the stage to force those we've educated in our universities and trained in our corporations to return home or go to other countries where they could become our competitors. This is despite the fact that we still need their skills, and that most of them desperately want to stay.

Powerful Incentive

Economist and 1992 Nobel laureate Gary Becker says "it is simply foolish for the U.S. to keep out the skilled immigrants we badly need". He prescribes increasing annual quotas for highly skilled professionals by many multiples, with no per-country limits. He advocates the elimination of the H-1B program so that all such visas become permanent. Becker believes current limits place the many skilled applicants from India and China at an unfair disadvantage, while the U.S. gains nothing from the policy.

Robert Litan, vice-president of research and policy at the Kauffman Foundation, suggests we grant automatic citizenship to students who complete degrees in mathematics, engineering, and science from qualified institutions of higher learning. These are precisely the individuals we should be seeking to attract and retain, and the promise of citizenship upon satisfactory completion of their studies would be a powerful incentive for many to come, he says.

I believe the U.S. needs to be very selective in who it admits and should screen immigration applicants very carefully. But I agree with both Becker and Litan—let's attract the best from our competition and get them here to stay permanently.

Wadhwa is senior research associate at the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He is an entrepreneur who founded two technology companies. His research can be found at www.globalizationresearch.com.