Last week the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security held a hearing concerning the state of high skilled immigration into the United States. Although the panel included the normal academic scholars who believe immigration needs to be sharply curtailed, most of the speakers (and all of the business leaders) told the committee that the current high skills immigration system is inadequate and that it is dampening the United States’s ability to grow.
NASDAQ’s CEO stated:
“Whether in Silicon Valley, Austin, Chicago, or anywhere else in the United States, I hear from CEOs that the H-1B visa system is inadequate for today’s human capital marketplace and the backlog for green cards and what they mean to the quality and the uncertainty of the lives of these foreign-born employees is a legitimate threat to their business.”
David Skorton, President of Cornell University, stated:
The U.S. is not always the top choice of students from Asia who are applying to graduate school in science and engineering. ..If our immigration policy causes the number and quality of international students who matriculate in STEM disciplines at U.S. universities to decline significantly, it will reduce our capacity for research, innovation, and ultimately economic growth.
To Watch A Webcast of the Hearing, click below:
