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The Public Policy
The Nobel Case for Immigration
Keeping our eyes on the prize when it comes to immigration policy.
Only 1 in 20 people on earth live in America. But Americans won 4 of 11 Nobel prizes this year. Last year, it was 8 of 9. Many of those American laureates are immigrants. Today, about 1 in 8 Americans are foreign-born, but 1 in 4 American Nobel laureates since 1901 are foreign-born. Immigrants, it seems, are chronic overachievers. America would benefit by letting more in.
A third of Silicon Valley’s scientists and engineers are immigrants. Forty percent of Ph.D. scientists working in the U.S. are foreign-born. They are sources of innovation, progress, and — not to be ignored — jobs. If our immigration laws allowed more high-skilled workers into the country, the result would be faster growth and higher employment.
America has a long waiting list of eager high-skilled immigrants. Some of them may be future Nobel laureates.
But current immigration laws are keeping them out the country. The H-1B visa for skilled immigrants is capped at 85,000. Demand is far higher than that in most years. In non-recession years, those 85,000 spots are typically filled in a single day.
The quota on highly skilled immigrants is economically costly. Genius-level intellects are missing out on the chance to flower at the world’s best universities. They’re also missing out on one of the world’s best entrepreneurial environments. The world is missing out on their lost achievements. And Americans are missing out on cutting-edge jobs in high-tech fields. Consumers lose out on products that are never invented.
A 2005 World Bank study found that foreign graduate students working in the United States file an enormous number of patents. A quarter of international patents filed from the U.S. in 2006 named a non-U.S. citizen working in the U.S. as the inventor or co-inventor. Immigrants — some of whom our immigration bureaucracy refuses to recognize — are responsible for an outsized portion of today’s rapid technological advancement.
Fortunately for America, some of these high achievers are willing to break the law to be here. According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration Statistics, there are almost 300,000 illegal Indian immigrants in the U.S. Many of them arrived here on H-1B or student visas and have overstayed their legal residency in hopes of getting a green card.
The non-partisan National Foundation for American Policy reports that for every H-1B visa issued, U.S. technology firms increase their employment by five workers. It is a remarkable policy failure that almost 300,000 Indian immigrants live in legal limbo. They should be allowed to flex their entrepreneurial muscle without fear of being deported.
And that’s just India. There are millions of talented individuals from Asia, Europe, and elsewhere who could do wonders for America’s ailing economy, if the law would let them. A co-winner of this year’s chemistry Nobel, Ei-ichi Negishi, is an immigrant from Japan. How many like him want to come here, but can’t?
This year’s physics Nobel laureates, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novosolev, emigrated from Russia to the UK. What if they had come to the U.S. instead?
Most immigrants to the United States have lower skills than a potential Nobel Prize winner. But policy makers cannot look into the future and figure out who will win a Nobel Prize and who will be average. Immigration restrictions make it less likely for Americans to win that prize. Immigrants are less likely to find a country where they could intellectually flourish. That is the world’s loss.
The number of Nobel-caliber intellects who have lost their opportunity to do research in this country is unknown. What is known is that the U.S. government has kept out millions of the most inventive, brilliant, and entrepreneurial people in the world for no good reason.
About the Author
Ryan Young is Fellow in Regulatory Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 10.26.10 @ 6:52AM
Perhaps it's better for the ruling class to let the illiterate in because they know they are more easily duped.
In essence, that's our current immigration policy.
Quartermaster| 10.26.10 @ 7:36PM
We don't employ the Engineers and Scientists we graduate. It has become especially acute in Computer Science. The H1-B program is much of the problem.
If we employed the entire glob of Hard Science, Engineering, and Computer Science grads we have I would be more sympathetic to Young' s and Nowrasteh's argument. But we don't and there argument is nothing but shilling for the companies that are glad to throw over our grads to get some H1-B slave who lives in fear of his/her employer. H1-Bs are some of the most mistreated imported labor we have. The companies that import them should be ashamed of themselves. Instead, they simply argue for more corporate welfare in kind.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:13PM
I agree 100%. I work as a software engineer and I can tell you that the H1-B's I have worked with are not going to be winning any Nobel prizes. They were brought in by companies looking to pay less, plain and simple. If there were truly a shortage of tech workers training budgets would be high as companies would be looking to fill positions with trainees. They aren't.
Most of the H1-B's are more similar to illegals who are taking construction jobs from American citizens. They are just being brought in to a different sector of the economy. They truly talented can still come to this country. The CEO's of tech companies who say otherwise are blowing smoke.
I am no protectionist either, I believe there can be sensible immigration policies to fill voids in certain fields. In technology and science, there is no void. Jobs are going overseas and young grads can't find work. We don't need foreign workers here to fill those non-existent jobs.
USC| 10.29.10 @ 4:56PM
I'm not sure why the authors mix up H1Bs with those foreign nationals who are Nobel-caliber professionals. The latter can more easily get the O-1 (Extraordinary ability) nonimmigrant visa or do an EB1 (Extraordinary ability) immigrant visa case if they are that talented. We don't really want the huddled masses coming here anymore, but the best and brightest still need to be able to come in if our economy is to remain competitive with China and India in the next 50-200 years.
Melvin| 10.26.10 @ 7:16AM
A stupid man doesn't question authority he only fears and obeys it. That is why the ruling elites along with their willing enablers within the Department of Education are producing obedient morons, who know just enough to be come docile and compliant workers.
That is the problem that the elites are having now. There is still enough of us left who received a fairly decent government education early on, that enables us to discern bull squeeze from horse squeeze. And were not afraid to speak up and act out.
INS is broke. It has been politically jerry rigged for so long that the system will admit an illiterate diseased peasant from the Southern Hemisphere and deny a nuclear physicist from India.
Sounds like we should set our priorities don't you think?
The Left will choose the peasant each and every time because he will not question the Liberal dogma, he will only obey it, and not question it. The Nuclear Physicist is perceived as a threat to Liberalism because at least from India which is by and large Conservative.
Tim*| 10.26.10 @ 7:31AM
Where will all our Future Nobel Laureate Leaf Blowers and Lawn Rakers come from ?
USC| 10.29.10 @ 5:01PM
You're mixing up visa categories: unskilled seasonal workers (H2B visas) are different that Nobel laureates who would qualify for O-1 nonimmigrant visa or EB1 immigrant visa. U.S. Immigration law is the most voluminous law in the U.S., next to Federal Tax law. The U.S. State Dept. has a really great resource that explains all visa types (http://travel.state.gov/visa/)
Reflector| 10.26.10 @ 7:53AM
From this article: "Fortunately for America, some of these high achievers are willing to break the law to be here. According to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics, there are almost 300,000 illegal Indian immigrants in the U.S."
Sorry, but this is irresponsible advocacy of illegal activity.
Further, the National Foundation for American Policy which these authors cite is a group consisting basically of one man - Stuart Anderson - who has done nothing but work in politics pushing pro-high-immigration policies all is career. He advocates for higher immigration levels for unskilled labor and "family unification" as well as near-open borders for skilled immigrants and temporary workers. Check out his "Four Steps to Fix Immigration" in Forbes:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/.....erson.html
As far as the high immigration vs. lower and smarter immigration debate goes, the National Foundation for American Policy is about as non-partisan as Nancy Pelosi is non-partisan, and its "studies" reflect that. Similarly with the two authors of this article: both from the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
From this article: "Most immigrants to the United States have lower skills than a potential Nobel Prize winner. But policy makers cannot look into the future and figure out who will win a Nobel Prize and who will be average. Immigration restrictions make it less likely for Americans to win that prize."
Okay, so let's eliminate all immigration quotas and let the whole world into the U.S., just to ensure that we don't miss out on any Nobel prize-winners. Considering how most of Asia seems to want to immigrate here, my estimates of U.S. population growth in that case go something like this:
2020: 450,000
2030: 700,000
2040: 1 billion
2050: ???
This article is one of the silliest things I've ever read.
Googleby| 10.26.10 @ 8:40AM
Irresponsible advocacy of an illegal activity? I'm glad you're going to stand strong defending Obamacare as it comes online over the next couple o years.
Also, your fear mongering about population growth might make this post more appetizing for NARAL or another anti-human pro abortion website. Conservatives generally believe that more people = better.
JP| 10.26.10 @ 12:02PM
Your numbers do not hold up to reality. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in the US is about 2.0 children per female. Without immigrants the TFR is about 1.7 children per female. The peak TFR in the US occured during the early 1960s (3.6 children per female). It began to decline rapidly in the late 60s before hitting a nadir of 1.5 in the 1970s. It did rise during the 1990s and early 2000s (2.2 in 2003) before declining again. The rise in the 1990s and early 2000s can be attributed to immigrants (mainly illegal).
But this trend is global. The Global TFR in 1970 was 5.6 per female. Today it is 2.5 per female. In Mexico and Central America birth rates are spirally downward. The TFR for Mexico was about 5.0 children per female in 1978. Today, it is 2.6 per female.
For a nation to have a stable population, it must have a TFR of 2.1 children per female. The population of the US is approximately 300 million souls. With a TFR of 2.1 its population will be 300 million in 2100. The only means a nation can grow its population with a TFR below 2.1 is immigration. If a nation refuses to reproduce it forfeits its future. The US essientally has refused to reproduce for 1 and a half generations. It has relied on the fecund recent immigrant to grow its population. Traditionally it took 1 to 2 generations of immigrants to slow down thier fertility. However, it is taking less than half a generation for our Asian, Hispanic, and African immigrants to absorb the bad habits of thier host nation. And now we can't even rely on immigration, as Mexico, Central and South America will have fewer immigrants to offer up.
The future will rely on those nations that actually will have large young populations. Count out North America, Europe, Russia, Japan, and North Africa. All of the aforementioned regions have TFRs that are or will drop below 2.1 during the next decade. Even Iran, and Turkey have falling birth rates.
No, over-population was never a problem. An aging and dwindling population is. The only region or state in the US with healthy fertility rates are not populated with Hispanic, Catholic, or Muslim immigrants. Utah is filled with Mormons, and Utah has a TFR of almost 5.0 children per female. The lowest, not surprsingly is New England, where one out of every 2 conception ends in abortion. New England and not Florida has the largest concentration of the aging. The median age in New England is the oldest in the nation.
weaver| 10.31.10 @ 5:43PM
JP wrote:
"If a nation refuses to reproduce it forfeits its future."
Did you ever stop to consider that women don't have enough confidence in the "nation" to become a parent to more hungry children?
Anyway, the Census is reporting about 4 million births per year against 2.5 million deaths.
Something is wrong with your TFR data.
Seek| 10.26.10 @ 12:38PM
I guess winning Nobel prizes is a job that most Americans won't do. Joe Guzzardi on vdare.com has an excellent refutation of the nonsense expounded in this piece.
Googleby| 10.26.10 @ 6:34PM
So excellent you won't even post the link? The argument for not letting in highly skilled people, who excel at these subjects is weak.
And the argument isn't that "Americans won't do them," it's that we are all better off having as many goods and services offered at the lowest price possible. That's prosperity.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:17PM
You are assuming that H1-B's are all highly skilled and are filling jobs because no American workers are available. TOTALLY. FALSE. ASSUMPTION.
jerseycityjoan| 10.27.10 @ 7:03AM
Do you want to be paid the lowest price possible?
Or even better, work for no wages, just a few scraps of food, enough to keep you working for your very happy employer?
No?
Well, then perhaps there's something to Henry Ford's idea of a well paid workforce that is able afford a wide price range of products.
Prosperity for everyone, I think I'll go with that.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:36PM
Typical comment from Tim*. Guys, there are 13 million Jews in the world, from which 22 percent of ALL the Nobels in the world have come from. Therefore, just as an extrapolation, the 6 million Jews lost in the Holocaust cost the world 10 percent of its future Nobels, and, as America has won something like 30 percent of all the world's Nobel Prizes and Jews have won a significant portion of those, it cost the US about a third of its potential Nobels.. That's an example of the result of a poor immigration policy (the US') costing a country quite dearly.
The fact is, any entrepeneurial types that are law abiding and well educated we should be encouraging to come. Smart immigrants are useful things.
EngiNERD| 10.26.10 @ 8:29AM
For an alternate view, rebuttal check these websites!
These analysts need to study it too!
.
Most of the "LAME-STREAM" media won't touch these issues see their Corporate Leaders feed on Cheap (professional) Labor too HUH? It all appears to be connected.
The Corporate media, Corporate propagandists therefore giving a free pass in:
Screwing the American worker!!!!
LET ME OFFER THIS INFO
http://www.american-engineers-for-america.info
There dozen more links but then this website , comments page won't let me post them
You'll have to find them out .
.. or maybe the readers can add them ??
Googleby| 10.26.10 @ 8:41AM
If you think "protecting" America's economy from foreign competition will make us wealthy, you must love what Obama's doing! He's going one step further, protecting Americans from themselves.
True conservatives believe in free trade and free association, not protectionism.
buckeyeman| 10.26.10 @ 10:53AM
True conservative believe in the rule of law.
When I graduated from high school (did you??) there were 100 million fewer people living in this country. There was more farmland, fewer housing developments, fewer cars, and less welfare. More people does NOT=better. You are as idiotic as the moron who wrote this article.
JP| 10.26.10 @ 12:17PM
When did you graduate? The median age of the US is much higher today than it was in 1960. You conflate population growth with "well being". The rate of population increase in the US has been decelerating for decades. Without immigrants this nation would be far poorer, much older, and less dynamic.
Contrary to your rants, there has been no nation that had dynamic economic growth with falling populations. The wealthiest areas on earth (Hong Kong, Signapore) have some of the highest population densities. Yet, it was during times of rapid population dearth that the hardest economic times known to Man occured (the Coldest decades of the Little Ice Age, Black Death, and the collapse of the Mayan and Inca societies).
To have a growing, wealthy economy, one must have people - and lots of them. The period of greatest economic growth in World History (1983-2007) occured during a period of its greatest population increase. The rise of dozens of nations (and 1 billion people) from Third World to First World could have only occured with the addition of people. However, we've been living off the fertility of past generations. The birthrates of the world on now in free-fall. From a high of almost 6 children per female (TFR) in 1970, the world now has median fertility rate of only 2.6 and will fall below replacement levels this decade.
Have fun changing your own diapers when you hit old age.
PolishKnight| 10.26.10 @ 2:09PM
"Contrary to your rants, there has been no nation that had dynamic economic growth with falling populations. "
Easily disproven. Western Europe is a perfect contrarian example. We may make fun of these countries with the problems they have due to socialism, but if given a choice between working and living in most of these countries versus, say, Southern Arizona or California, I'd learn to speak German in a snap!
In fact... probably the only thing keeping their pitiful socialist economies going was their career women feminist marxists having fewer babies and thereby freeing up more resources. Only when they panicked and opened up immigration in the hopes of poor dishwashers from Turkey paying their pensions did things begin to go south.
India becoming a "first world" nation due to increasing population? That hasn't happened yet. On the contrary, their best and brightest are leaving.
Googleby| 10.26.10 @ 6:36PM
European populations are not falling, their TFRs are below replacement but because Europeans are living longer, their populations are still increasing. That's even ruling out the impact of immigration.
Facts.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:19PM
Yes, they are doing a great job of importing radical Muslims who will ultimately destroy European society. Not all immigration is a good thing.
PolishKnight| 10.27.10 @ 11:43AM
The German and French elites are now saying it was a mistake to bring in Muslim labor in the hopes they would work and pay into their pension systems and then go home without drawing any serious benefits.
Instead, they wound up with another special interest group to drag on the socialist state.
Sound familiar? The USA did something similar with slavery. Bring in cheap labor so that the capitalists can make a ton of money (because it's wrong for conservatives to criticize rich people, of course) and then when slavery was repealed... the states was left with a massive social conflict that continues to this day.
"Diversity?" Martin Luther King's "dream?" We still have segregation but it's via suburban sprawl. Good going social planners and capitalist geniuses with 3 hour commutes on the freeways because "trains" are stupid (and don't make any money for firestone and standard oil)
Yes, I know that sounds like I am a socialist sympathizer but I'm not. The dems and greens ultimately would destroy a nation in order to keep their agenda alive if only in name only. That doesn't mean crony capitalism is a holy solution to the world's problems either.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:42PM
No, their populations are aging and becoming less productive, and the decline will start in a few decades. Fact. However, some countries, like Russia and Japan, are already falling in population.
Googleby---if you have fewer babies than you need to replace the people there, eventually your population will start falling. If you don't want to follow Steyn's inexorable logic, follow Ben Wattenberg in "Fewer" or "The Empty Cradle" by Langman.
Europe is throwing away its future to maintain an unsustainable present.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:39PM
PolishKnight, I went to one of those countries and came back (New Zealand). My sister, who is as Blue as they come, did the same (Denmark).
Western Europe is dying. Are you paying attention to the riots and honor killings yet?
PolishKnight| 10.29.10 @ 11:15AM
GA, is that you?
Occam'sTool, sorry about the late response (for some reason, amspec didn't want to take my posts for a while, switching browsers helps) Western Europe is dying not because of low birthrates but rather cultural rot. They bought into the US leftist dogma of diversity which was meant to dehumanize white male conservatives in the states and now it's wierd to see people in Ireland experiencing white guilt. For what? In Poland, they find it hilarious when leftists try to go there and preach it. It's like asking us to feel guilty about the Serb/Bosnia conflict.
Manpower, literally, was needed back in the days when militaries were a function of it. They needed to throw millions of young men at each other to keep invaders out. With PC diversity, they invite the invaders in. I even had a leftist blurt out to me that non-white immigration is "payback" affirmative-action for white colonization of North America and the rest of the world.
Consider Sweden and Canada which are doing well despite socialists policies that should have destroyed them. Their stable populations and low population density and large natural resources couldn't have hurt them. On the contrary, in Canada especially, all that timber and oil gurantees jobs even if their politicians are total morons.
Vern Crisler| 10.26.10 @ 1:48PM
Conservatives do not believe people are the problem, but rather policies. Leave the over-population rhetoric to the far left. They believe in population control because they believe in controling populations.
googleby| 10.26.10 @ 6:37PM
Sorry buddy, your socialist point of view that more people equals less wealth doesn't hold. Population, all other facts remaining equal throughout human history means more wealth. China was poorer when it's population was 100 million. It will be wealthier if and when it's population ever hits 2 billions.
I suggest you look at facts you Malthusian leftist.
jerseycityjoan| 10.26.10 @ 9:20PM
What are your thoughts on the millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans?
What are they supposed to do as we import more labor? Are you willing to pay the economic and social costs of keeping tens of millions of Americans at a subsistence level, or less? Plus as the years go by, what will you do with the expanding underclass the policies you are espousing would create?
Open borders = disaster, in my opinion
We have found in this decade that cheap labor is only cheap for the employer. What do you see that will keep the costs of education of offspring and future healthcare away from the taxpayer and on the backs of the immigrants and employers themselves?
googleby| 10.26.10 @ 6:37PM
Sorry buddy, your socialist point of view that more people equals less wealth doesn't hold. Population, all other facts remaining equal throughout human history means more wealth. China was poorer when it's population was 100 million. It will be wealthier if and when it's population ever hits 2 billions.
I suggest you look at facts you Malthusian leftist.
PolishKnight| 10.27.10 @ 11:38AM
China was poorer quite possibly because they were a socialist nation and backwards. In addition, while China is now certainly wealthier, they are consuming vast amounts of national resources and competing with the USA for oil.
How great will all this cheap labor be when we're paying $10 for a gallon of gasoline and $20 for a bag of race and have to wait in traffic 3 hours a day (one way) to get to work before coming home to a luxurious 500 square foot apartment in a high rise?
EngiNERD| 10.26.10 @ 9:09AM
AND here's the mantra:
"The goal is NOT to Find and American worker!"
http://www.youtube.com/programmersguild
Derek Leaberry| 10.26.10 @ 9:17AM
Round up the Third World illegals and give them the boot. America must end Third World immigration. The sad thing about Open Borders "conservatives" is that they are cultural nihilists. They see the world through an economics prism alone. They are spiritually and morally bankrupt. They truly are anti-conservative.
Harry the Horrible| 10.26.10 @ 9:32AM
We don't have any issues with bringing in legal, educated immigrants who want to join our country.
Its the hordes of illegal invading barbarians with whom we have issues.
Lauren R.| 10.28.10 @ 3:07AM
The reason they are "illegal" is because INS and Congress makes them that way by their stupid policies. By the way, when was the last time you broke the law? Perhaps speeding on your way to work today? Speeding is illegal. So get off your high horse about "illegal." The vast majority of those people you call barbarians are harder working more decent and tolerant people than you are. There is no reason to make it ridiculously difficult for hard working people of ANY intelligence or education to come here to work and perhaps over time find a path to citizenship. INS is without doubt the worst bureaucracy in the government and every employee should be fired. If you have any doubt about this, talk to someone who is trying to legally become a U.S. citizen.
Mike W| 10.26.10 @ 9:54AM
What a ridiculous article. Where does American Spectator get these people?
The vast majority of illegal aliens can't read their own language. Forget about them ever learning English. They will be a massive drain on this country for years to come.
Mel Torme| 10.26.10 @ 10:07AM
Another country heard from. I wonder whether these 2 fool writers are old enough to remember the 1970's even. If not, they could have read about the mighty economic power of the US during the 1950's through '70's, following a time (mid '20's through 1965) when there was very low immigration into the US.
I guess researching, or even thinking about, this is too much work for an American writer. I think it better we import more American Spectator writers, maybe from the ex-East-Bloc countries, or maybe some Gypsies on H1B visas, to, you know, do the job that Americans obviously won't do.
Young and Nowrasteh must think it more important to import $10/hr graduate students to be researchers than for an American scientist or engineering grad. to be able to make it through. It's too bad for the students who can't understand a word these "future nobel prize immigrants" say during the lectures. That's why you've got the $120 textbook, right?
Time to shut immigration down for a while, to say, 200,000/ yr legal and 0 illegal.
Lauren R.| 10.28.10 @ 3:16AM
Try a little research before you spout nonsense. The reason America grew so rapidly from the late 1800's to the 1930's, was due to unrestricted immigration. Unless you're full-blooded Native American, your ancestors were immigrants. Know what xenophobia is? That's you. Get over it. Immigrants are here because they're looking for a better life and willing to work hard for it. Remember the American Dream? They've got it and they're working their butts off for it, while you clutch your Bud Lite and spew bigotry from your La-Z-Boy.
Mel Torme| 10.30.10 @ 10:01AM
I am a full-blooded native American, Lauren. I don't drink Bud Light, I don't own a lazy boy, and I am not afraid of xenon (Radon is a different stoisry.)
This patriot says "fuck off Lauren."
PolishKnight| 10.26.10 @ 10:59AM
"Fortunately for America, some of these high achievers are willing to break the law to be here. According to the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Immigration Statistics, there are almost 300,000 illegal Indian immigrants in the U.S."
And this proves what exactly? Sure, there are many successful Indians who immigrated to the USA. There are also many successful WHITE MALES who immigrated as well.
Just as there are white males who aren't necessarily going to be winning any nobels anytime soon (I'm one of them, admittantly), quite frankly, not all Indians are geniuses who work for half pay either.
Outsourced tech support to India has gotten a lot of companies into trouble for bad support and even cost overruns. In the case of one company I know, the Indian tech support company charged, get this, $200 an hour for java programming for workers supposedly in Ohio who turned out to be remote in Mumbai. The code was terrible and had to be thrown away.
What was management's reaction to the debacle? Why, buy MORE of course! Anything but pay local, possibly, gasp, white males to do the work! This reminds me of women who fall for players who go to discos and wear nice suits and drive nice cars even if the guys work as a janitor. It's all about the reputation. Crony capitalists are in love with shafting over the worker so much that sometimes they wind up even losing money. Then they try to ask them to vote for GW Bush because, hey, it's better than socialism, right?
Anthony| 10.26.10 @ 9:19PM
Amen.
Paul from SA| 10.26.10 @ 11:20AM
I will not read an article with a headline that's missing the most important qualifier:
Are you talking about LEGAL or ILLEGAL immigration? Liberals are notorious for leaving out any distinction between the two to deceive the reader.
Mr. Young and Mr. Nowrasteh, LEGAL or ILLEGAL?
btims| 10.26.10 @ 11:35AM
The debate between legal and illegal immigration is a red-hering, for we don't, and haven't really enforced immigration laws (and the border) for decades.
All immigration into the USA should be reduced for at least ten years - a small majority of the American people favor reducing the numbers for a variety of reasons - bad economy/high unemployment, "Balkanization" of American society due to so many disparate people coming here and the near stopping of all assimilation being taught by our government, our schools, our society as a whole.
The United States WAS NOT found by immigrants, NOR BUILT BY IMMIGRANTS - both are fallacies. The USA does not exist merely as a place for half the world to move to.
Time to reduce immigraion. Period.
jerseycityjoan| 10.26.10 @ 9:42PM
"The USA does not exist merely as a place for half the world to move to."
Shame, shame on you for suggesting that this country is OUR country.
We have to reteach ourselves and the world that America is [primarily] for Americans. I say this with no hostility or prejudice. I merely claim for myself, and my fellow citizens what citizens in other countries claim for themselves and their fellow citizens.
We need to remember that many of the problems of mass immigration will not be truly manifest and felt for another generation or two. We need to wake up and think about the terrible mess our inertia and selfishness is creating for future generations.
Sheila| 10.26.10 @ 11:38AM
The question is not legal or illegal; neither is it high IQ or low IQ - it's race and culture. The distinction between legal immigrants and illegals is mere sophistry; as a former visa officer I know that most consular officers rubber stamp inaccurate/incomplete/fraudulent applications, and most applicants are only legal through sham marriages, fake birth certificates, and fraudulent pay stubs to prove economic sufficiency. As far as the high IQ argument, why is it that now we're told that no White males are capable of scientific achievement, when for the first two and a half centuries of this country's existence, we did just fine without all those "brilliant" Indian and Chinese immigrants? Totally aside from the fact that they are far from brilliant (out of their billions of ignorant and impoverished people, they tend to send their brightest to grad school in the U.S., and most of those only achieve due to preferential hiring), would this truly be America if it were populated primarily by purported high-IQ Indians and Chinese? Culture matters. Race matters. Ask most of these supposedly desirable immigrants and they will tell you they are loyal to "their people" and their "homeland." The incidence of espionage among Chinese (U.S. citizen and non-citizen alike) is staggering - and staggeringly covered up. Of course, I am merely an evil racist xenophobe, so keep living in multicultural la-la-land and try hard not to think about what sort of life your descendants (if you have any - most of those educated above their ability have few, thank heavens) will endure as aliens in what was once their own country. Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy. Decline and fall.
Derek Leaberry| 10.26.10 @ 11:56AM
Very wise words. Too bad that the Republican elite is as much our enemy as are the Democrats.
Vern Crisler| 10.26.10 @ 1:44PM
Yes, if this is what you believe Sheila, then you are an evil racist xenophobe. Opposing illegal immigration, or requiring tougher standards for legal immigration, does not presuppose nor entail anything about race.
Anthony| 10.26.10 @ 9:24PM
No, you're a racist and my daddy can take your daddy any day of the week. Come on Vern, calling someone a racist is probably the most played out cliche on earth. It has no meaning at all.
Mel Torme| 10.26.10 @ 3:02PM
Excellent post, Sheila!
(can you believe these 2 nitwit writers? I wish the Spectator would hire you to write - you would have to break things up into paragraphs, of course ;-)
hunter| 10.26.10 @ 11:46AM
Immigration hell! We should be rounding up and expelling. The first place I'd start is at the big hi powered names such as Harrvurrd. Daily network shows such as the View comes to mind also.
Ryan Young | 10.26.10 @ 11:50AM
Paul from SA - Alex and I are talking about expanding the definition of legal immigration. We think it would help the economy for the reasons stated in the article. Thanks for commenting.
Vern Crisler| 10.26.10 @ 12:06PM
Of course 300,000 illegal Indian immigrants is a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of Mexican illegals -- which is what most people are complaining about. No one really worries about Chinese, Indian, Canadian, or British illegals.
That said, the law is the law. I have no problem with allowing more skilled foreigners into America, but they shouldn't be here illegally.
What is objectionable is MASS immigration -- the type of immigration that created so many problems in the 19th century and that is creating so many problems in Arizona or other border states. There is no problem with moderate, rational immigration.
Mel Torme| 10.26.10 @ 3:05PM
What's a million a year, Vern? Would you call that "mass immigration" or not? That's the magnitude of our LEGAL immigration. You need to look at the numbers, know what I mean, Vern?
Paul from SA| 10.27.10 @ 11:18AM
Mr. Young, thanks for the reply. I will now read the article.
JP| 10.26.10 @ 12:24PM
As I posted above, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of the world now stands at 2.6 children per female. Forty years ago it was 6.0 children per female. In the US the TFR is at 2.0 per female. Subrtract immigrants, and it is only 1.7 . Iin 1978 the TFR of Mexico was around 5.0 children per female. Today it is 2.6 . Go further South and things do not get better. Yes, most South and Central American nations still have TFRs above replacement levels, but they are falling as fast as ours. And by late in this decade, they will fall below replacement levels. In short, there will be fewer and fewer immigrants to the US, as these nations will have fewer young people.
The median age of this nation is rapidly increasing. The only reason our population will continue to rise these next 3 decades is the simple fact people are living longer. The only state in the US that has healthy birth rates is Utah. The oldest area of this nation is New England, where 1 out of every 2 conceptions end in abortion.
Do the math. This nation will get poorer for the simple fact that it will be getting much older.
Mel Torme| 10.26.10 @ 3:09PM
JP, I don't know how you equate older to poorer. America was a great country when we had 1/2 of the population we have now. Now, not all of the massive reduction in our freedoms has been due to increase in population, but there is something of a relationship there, too.
(Eric Peters - the car guy - has written a great article on this about a week ago, but for some strange reason it didn't appear on this site ... makes you go "hmmmm??")
If we replace Americans with foreigners, just what country is it you have left? That's what I ask you JP.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:46PM
Older=Poorer because older people do not take the risks, do not have the imagination, and are incapable of working as hard as people in their 20s. You do not want a gerontocracy.
I say this as a 48 year old MD who got his MD at age 25.
Indian_H1B| 10.26.10 @ 12:28PM
As an Indian languishing in the greencard pools for the most part of a decade, I find the remark of "300,000 illegal Indians as fortunate to the US" offensive and at best humor in poor taste.
The Dot Com years have undoubtedly led to the arrival of a lot of mediocre Indians. Many of them have fly-by-night degrees from colleges in India. In my home town of Bangalore, residential homes can be converted to colleges overnight if you know the right people in govt, or at least have the means to grease sufficient palms.
These people are merely replacing other white-collar Americans by offering to work for a discount. My entire undergraduate education in India cost me $1,000 USD and more than half of it was covered by a science scholarship I won in high-school. Since I don't have to make those college loan repayments, I can clearly make do with a lower income than a similarly qualified American.
The one pity is that all H-1Bs have become laughing stocks. This includes the guy with a PhD from MIT working on solid-state and the vast majority of the 300,000 illegals you reference. This would not have happened if that dysfunctional bureaucracy called USCIS had been more selective in who it have H-1Bs to. They have cleared up their act, but too late. Talented Indians on H-1Bs have been permanently tarnished by the presence of a much larger set of mediocre Indians on H-1Bs.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:23PM
Thank you for your honesty. As someone who works in the software industry, I agree 100%. There are some very talented Indian nationals but there are 1000's of mediocre ones too who are taking jobs that Americans CAN AND WOULD do.
Paul Streitz| 10.26.10 @ 1:21PM
Another truly stupid article from the open borders crowd. Exactly how many of the Nobel prize winners from the USA were born in another country.
Another ruse to produce an endless flood of low level computer geeks from the Punjab into the United States. On the assumption that some brilliant person, heretofore unrecognized in India, will win a Nobel prize, which will be worthless, but not to have, for the USA.
pfs
JP| 10.26.10 @ 1:48PM
Look at Oracle and Sun Micro, IBM, Intel, Motorola, and Microsoft. Most of thier software developers, engineers and project managers come from India. Go to MIT, Cal Poly, and Cal Tech. Check out thier enrollment. The majority of thier students come out of Asia.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:25PM
Are you saying those are great companies? They make money but I can tell you that not all of their ventures involving offshore and H1-B labor have been successful. The code for Windows 7 ended up being a do-over because of offshore labor.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:51PM
Many US Nobelists were born in another country, or were the offspring of recent immigrants. Consider that approximately 33 percent of ALL Nobels in the USA have been won by Jews, and extrapolate.
You want smart, hard working, law abiding people to immigrate. You don't want illegal, illiterate aliens. There is a massive difference.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:53PM
Feel free to check out this website for specidfics:
JINFO.ORG
"At least 181 Jews and people of half- or three-quarters-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize,1 accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2010, and constituting 36% of all US recipients2 during the same period.3 In the research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine, the corresponding world and US percentages are 26% and 39%, respectively. Among women laureates in the four research fields, the Jewish percentages (world and US) are 38% and 50%, respectively. Of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 25% were founded principally by Jews or by people of half-Jewish descent. (Jews currently make up approximately 0.2% of the world's population and 2% of the US population.)
Chemistry (31 prize winners, 20% of world total, 27% of US total)
Economics (28 prize winners, 42% of world total, 55% of US total)
Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)4
Physics (47 prize winners, 25% of world total, 36% of US total)
Physiology or Medicine (53 prize winners, 27% of world total, 40% of US total)
See also data on "other Nobels":
Jewish Recipients of the Kyoto Prize (25% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the Wolf Foundation Prize (34% of recipients)
Jewish Recipients of the US National Medal of Science (38% of recipients) "
jgo | 10.26.10 @ 3:16PM
Yes, look at Oracle and Sun Micro, IBM, Intel, Motorola, and MSFT. Most of their low-quality software is produced by developers, engineers and project managers from India, while most of the great software produced by creative, ethical firms is developed by US citizens.
Yes, I see your point, JP; we would be a lot better off if we had reasonable control of our borders and ports and our birth-rates were 1.7 or lower for the next 100 years, at least until we can bring the over-population and over-crowding down.
There was no shortage of talented US citizen STEM workers.
There is no shortage of talented US citizen STEM workers.
No credible evidence of impending shortage of talented US citizen STEM workers has been produced.
jgo| 10.26.10 @ 3:37PM
Sheila is partially correct and partially incorrect. The USA has never had a shortage of bright, even gifted people, and the H-1B and L-1 visas have nothing to do with the "best and brightest" or Nobel-worthy people, either. Hardly any of F, H-1B, J, and L-1 grantees especially bright, and certainly not as bright as many of the US citizens they've displaced. What they are is cheap, and easily manipulated.
Phiroz Vandrevala, VP of Tata, admitted this in 2006. India's ministers for trade confessed the same.
Studies carried out from the 1990s through 2010 by researchers from
Columbia U,
Computing Research Association (CRA),
Duke U,
Georgetown U,
Harvard U,
National Research Council of the NAS,
RAND Corporation,
Rochester Institute of Technology,
Rutgers U,
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
Stanford U,
SUNY Buffalo,
UC Davis,
UPenn Wharton School,
Urban Institute, and
US Dept. of Education Office of Education Research & Improvement
have reported that the USA has continually been producing more US citizen STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) workers than we've been employing in these fields.
Indeed, when investigated, it was found that US citizen STEM workers are the best, and that for decades many more US citizens have been fully prepared for careers in STEM fields than have been actually employed doing STEM work.
There was no shortage of STEM talent in the USA in 1986, when NSF began their propaganda campaign with the goal to force down the compensation of US citizens with PhDs. There was no shortage of US citizen STEM talent in 1990, when the H-1b program was hatched. There was no shortage of US citizen STEM talent in 1992 when the NSF's fraud went public in congressional hearings. There was no shortage of US citizen STEM talent in 1998 (a year with an up-tick in STEM lay-offs), 2000 (the year of the Y2K bust, stock market crash and the dot-com shake-out), or 2004 when the H-1B visa program was expanded and US STEM employment lagged. And there is no shortage of US citizen STEM talent today.
This is very clear from the low and dropping level of effort invested in recruiting and training and relocating US talent within the USA. It's also clear from the stagnant employment in software product development as compared with bodyshopping/ programming services/ temp/ contingent employment.
http://www.kermitrose.com/econSummaryAnalysis.html
jgo| 10.26.10 @ 4:15PM
The authors are also being deceptive about the numbers of H-1B visas issued.
The flexible "limits" on H-1B visas are broken down as follows, according to information obtained from the USCIS web site and the Congressional Research Service:
1,400 visas for nationals of Chile;
5,400 for nationals of Singapore;
20,000 for those with master's and doctor's degrees from accredited US colleges and universities;
58,200 with "bachelor's degrees or equivalent experience" from any hole-in-the-wall in the world;
unlimited visas for those employed by non-profit research outfits;
unlimited visas for those employed for local, state and federal research;
unlimited visas for those employed by US colleges & universities. But some of those sub-categories have never been exhausted, and USCIS rolls them over, adding thousands of them to the next year's vastly excessive base of 58,200.
In FY2008, 109,335 new H-1B visa applications were approved by USCIS, and with renewals and extensions it added up to 276,252. In FY2009 it was 86,300 new, 127,971 renewals and extensions for a total of 214,271. But the State department says they issued 129,464 in FY2008, and 110,367 in FY2009, plus an undisclosed additional number which were initially rejected and later approved on a waiver or on appeal. (I'm told that some who shift from one type of visa to another while remaining in the USA are also not included in these numbers.)
In 2000, 554 H-1B applicants who lacked the equivalent of a US high school diploma, and 2986 with less than the equivalent of a US bachelor's degree were approved by USCIS. In FY2009 those numbers were 108 and 829, respectively.
The other huge problem is that none of them undergo, pass or pay for a proper background investigation, which, along with the extremely low standards, is how some of the Faisal Shahzads get in via the F, H-1B, green card, naturalization process (but, on the plus side, we can be thankful for his incompetence).
http://www.kermitrose.com/econSummaryAnalysis.html
Butch | 10.26.10 @ 4:30PM
Thanks, Mr. Young. I am a university professor who has seen so many well-educated, hard-w0rking foreign students, all fluent in English, try very hard to stay here. We do need immigrants, and our immigration policy is bas-ackward. We make it the torment of the damned for those we wish to be citizens to stay, and try to bestow amnesty on millions of illiterate criminals (for that is what they are--here). We should be passing out green cards at the graduation of those hooded doctoral scientists and engineers.
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:27PM
So what do we tell the American citizens who went into deep debt to get an advanced degree who can't find work?
Indian_H1B| 10.26.10 @ 4:30PM
Having already expressed my displeasure at the mediocity of several H-1Bs from India, I do want to interject in response to what are clearly very racist posts about the superiority of the white American tech worker. Clearly, that kind of arrogance is a sign of imminent self-destruction.
Legal immigration if done right can be hugely synergistic. Since India and China cumulatively have 40% of the world's people, skimming the countries' intellectual cream could give the US a huge bang for the buck. The simple truth is that India's top 0.1% (about 1.2 million people) in terms of intellect are clearly way better than any sample of 1.2 million American tech workers (make them white American, if its pleases your racist palette) that you can possible assemble. If you know anything about the normal distribution and stochastics, you should be able to figure this out.
Standardized tests are not a great assessment of a person's skills but they are decent barometers. The premier school I was fortunate to attend in India would commonly produce guys scoring a 2300+ on the GRE (it used to be out of 2400 until the early 2000s) and 750+ on the GMAT. When I arrived in the US, I realized that scores on these exams were a couple of standard deviations lower among American students.
Anthony| 10.26.10 @ 9:29PM
All that brainpower and India is a third world country mired in poverty and disease, you'd think some of those geniuses could do something for their own people.
Indian_H1B| 10.27.10 @ 12:44AM
This straw-man argument has been repeated so often, it's annoying. The point concerns the top 0.1% of a third world nation. They can either spin their wheels trying to move 1.2 billion people in a direction of progress, or be pragmatic and seek to maximize their lifetime accomplishment. The latter is consistent with the very principle that America is based on.
The question is not whether the genius exists (the answer is a very simple "yes"). It is a question of where it can shine the most.
In general, people making poor arguments such as yours should not feel threatened. There will be few avenues where your intellectual bandwidth will cross that of the genius being spoken of.
jerseycityjoan| 10.27.10 @ 7:29AM
I feel bad for people like you who get caught up in the complexities of our immigration policies.
It can't be pleasant to hear our complaining but can you blame us? Unemployment is 10% and the guys that wrote this article are talking about admitting millions more temporary workers. We all know they are not talking Nobel-quality here, they are really talking about cheap labor which they see as a plus for American businesses.
I'd like to see us reform immigration, but "reform" nowadays is centered on illegal immigrants and pacifying various special interest groups. God only knows when we'll take a serious and sensible look at legal, employment-based immigration. Sorry.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 3:57PM
You are correct, my Indian friend. Given the corruption of countries that were largely socialized or communized until quite recently, it would have been difficult for the cream to change things. Not so here.
We Jews are always ready to compete, and welcome the challenge.
Anthony| 10.27.10 @ 8:28PM
"Intellectual bandwith", my when the English ruled your country they taught you guys some fancy words, but that still doesn't explain why all this so-called brain power can't move a poverty stricken, disease ridden country out of the third world. The reason Indians and others are sought in the US is not because of your great intellectual superiority, but because you great Brahmins come cheap and your former overlords taught our language to you, no other reason. Having worked with electrical engineers from India, I can tell you the way they get their degree is by putting the batteries in a flashlight correctly.
SVEngineer| 10.27.10 @ 2:45AM
I don't see any reason why the U.S. wants to train its competitors by enrolling Chinese/Indian students and then give them the on-the-job training via the H-1B program. The number of espionage committed by Chinese nationals (H-1B and even after becoming American citizens) is staggering. Indian is no better. There is an Indian-American engineer who spies for China. I think that the U.S. should lower the student/work visa for these 2 countries (India/China) + Russia so that it won't commit suicide my training its competitors.
angry_dude| 10.29.10 @ 1:15PM
relax, dude
There aren't too many young people coming from Russia to US these days
it's not early-90s anymore - there are far better opportunities in Russia or elsewhere than being a 10$ an hour graduate student slave for your 250K a year tenured US professor
But India is quite another matter
They still put untreated sewage out in the streets
jgo| 10.26.10 @ 4:36PM
The excessive quota on low-skilled H-1B immigrants is economically costly. Genius-level US citizen intellects are missing out on the chance to flower at the world's best universities. They're also missing out on one of the world's best entrepreneurial environments. The world is missing out on their lost achievements. And Americans are missing out on cutting-edge jobs in high-tech fields. Consumers lose out on products that are never invented.
87% of the job openings that were filled under the H-1B program were for entry-level positions that require only a 'good understanding of the occupation'. Employers who used the Department of Labor's skill-based prevailing wage system classified most workers (56%) as being at the lowest skill level as did most State Employment Security Agency (SESA) wage determinations (57%), according to the Department of Labor these represent "internships" or "workers in training".
We should lower the numbers of E-3, F, H-1B, J, and L visas issued, and increase the standards. Applicants for such visas should be tested and should have to demonstrate that they are bright and highly-skilled. Since the authors try to conflate O visas and Nobel prize-winners with the much lower standards of the H-1B, we might consider setting the bar at the top 2-hundredths of one percent. But let's demonstrate some of our world-renowned American generosity and desire to reward honest hard work and set it at the top one-third of one percent, and fill a more reasonable annual quota of 1000 from that.
"U.S. engineers... [are] more creative, excelled in problem solving, risk taking, networking and [have] strong analytical skills... in education, training, quality of work, you name it, in every which way, Americans are better..." as former cross-border bodyshopper Vivek Wadhwa reported.
http://www.kermitrose.com/econSummaryAnalysis.html#Media
Ken Royall| 10.26.10 @ 11:28PM
Excellent post.
Chair Nobomba| 10.26.10 @ 6:12PM
The hidden agenda of this piece is that immigration illegal or otherwise are all good. Any non-Nobel winner, like the rest of us, can see that legal immigration is great for this country, but illegal immigration can only drag us all down, down , down.
Negro X| 10.26.10 @ 7:48PM
Illegal is illegal, besides obams doesn't want a few thousand educated foriegners, he wants millions of uneducated poor foriegners who can be controlled.
gsr| 10.26.10 @ 7:54PM
Indian H-1B's should stay in India. Chinese H-1B's should stay in China..........likewise, Mexicans should stay in Mexico. Irish should stay in Ireland. Russians should stay in Russia. Moooslims should definitely NOT COME TO THE USA.
In other words, "good fences make good neighbors". Indians, Chinese, Moooslim, Mexicans, etc. Please stay home and work to improve your own nations.
Enough said.
jgo| 10.27.10 @ 7:57AM
Right, Indian_H1B. There's no way the USA could accept even 1% of the rest of the world's population, total, let alone each year. Instead of allowing in anyone in the top 60% or 70% as is now the case, the USA should be selecting a reasonable number from among the top 0.33%. Letting it be 0.33% instead of 0.01% gives us room to reward the especially hard workers, and otherwise meritorious, whose ability goes beyond rote memory. Setting the E-3 limit at about 500, the F at 10K, the H-1B at 1K, the J at 3K, the L limit at 5K, and green card limit at 20K, etc., would allow the US federal government to properly investigate the background of each applicant, to conscientiously process each application, and to properly track each visa grantee to make sure they leave when they should. The terms of student and guest-work visas should be 10 months or shorter, and renewable up to 4 times (initial+4=50months max). Exchange visas should be good for 3 months and not renewable. (Upon change of status or renewal, only an incremental background investigation would be required rather than repeating the full investigation each time, and costs and fees should be in line with that.)
Of course, all 6,800 some odd miles of border should be fenced and vehicle barriers placed, and the borders and shores patrolled to fend off the excess low-skilled and the criminally inclined. The illegal aliens already here should be conscientiously deported when found (not just processed or given notices to appear, but detained during status dispute, and then physically removed). ICE should be actively infiltrating businesses reasonably suspected of employing illegal aliens. Employers of illegal aliens should serve significant time in federal prison, and the illegal aliens should be identified and deported. If they've committed additional crimes, of course, they should serve their sentences and be deported rather than released.
The so-called "start-up" or "investment" visas should require the applicant to also (besides passing the background investigation and paying for it) require bringing in enough of their own money to cover at least 75% of what it would cost to build a burger kiosk (call it $110K in areas where real estate and building is cheapest, $225K or more in Sili Valley, Chicago, NY, Los Angeles), and the other 25% equivalent from off-shore investors. If they raise additional funds from US investors, that's fine, but it shouldn't count in qualifying for the visa. And they should have to employ at least 3 non-relatives who are US citizens within the first 6 months, 6 non-relative US citizens within the first 12 months, 10 non-relative US citizens within the first 20 months.
I'm not so sure winning a Nobel prize should automatically suffice to get an O visa, nor that O visas should come with visas for an entourage. Too many Nobel prizes have been given out for low-quality work in recent years.
PolishKnight| 10.27.10 @ 11:32AM
Here here!
I want to add that I hear lots of wuss conservatives and dishonest liberals say things like "Well, we're not going to be able to deport the 20 million or so illegals already here" or "A fence isn't going to keep all of them out."
These are "can't do" arguments and it's especially funny when they come from big-government-can-do-anything-liberals. It _is_ possible to build a fence and deport nearly all illegals. In fact, when immigrant laws are enforced it generates a storm of controversy as the illegals move onto a less strict state. Simply report the children of illegals enrolled in schools, or when they commit another crime, or try to apply for work to the INS.
We should combine this with an initiative to address identity theft. Conservatives and libertarians have issues with national identity cards but the fact of the matter is we already have one in the form of the SS card and drivers' licenses. Deal with it. The SS card should have biometric data embedded into it AND a USB interface. When you apply for a credit card or a job, the card will authenticate with the INS. You then run your fingerprint over a scanner in the card.
I think we need to focus less upon government as an enemy as many conservatives and tea partiers think and more in the line of bringing the government back into alignment with the peoples' objectives.
Occam's Tool| 10.27.10 @ 4:01PM
In the literature and peace awards, sure. In the chemistry, medicine, physics awards, not so much. Even Paul Krugman's research work was brilliant, although his op-ed work is moronic.
S.L. Toddard| 10.27.10 @ 9:45AM
I guess it's not surprising to find an article like this at a formerly-conservative magazine.
Bill Leslie| 10.27.10 @ 2:53PM
How many of those Nobel winners were illegal uneducated unskilled wetbacks? Just as I thought. And the H1B program has been abused to no end.
scythe| 10.27.10 @ 9:39PM
No more third world scum. No more hostile cultures. No more public handouts for recent arrivals. No more anchor babies. One more thing: I truly resent the idea that we need people from other countries to thrive and excel. They used to COPY us. Start taking the politics out of education and teach instead of indoctrinate and we might see that happen again. Really fed up with hearing how much we need foreigners since their standards of living have improved because we have the superior culture. It's time for a moratorium on immigration. America for Americans FIRST. The rest can stuff it.
IOnGov| 10.28.10 @ 1:58AM
STANDARD, PHONY CHEAP LABOR PITCH
This article is the standard, tired old cheap labor pitch utilizing NFAP's phony “research” that keeps popping up in various places on the internet. The idea is to saturate the news media with propaganda that supports raising the H-1B foreign “guest worker” quota so that more cheap labor can be imported into the country. The typical propaganda that has been used in the past for this has been to assert that there is a “shortage” of highly skilled workers and that these workers are desperately needed in order to power new technological endeavors that create jobs. As numerous studies have shown that THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF HIGHLY SKILLED TECHNICAL WORKERS IN THE U.S., the propagandists have moved on to other tactics such as trying to portray H-1Bs as “genius innovators” that create jobs. This is the tactic used by the phony “non-partisan” National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) “study” cited in the article. This “study” has been debunked by Dr. Norman Matloff of the University of California at Davis, who actually has a doctorate in mathematics specializing in probability and statistics, unlike NFAP's MR. Stuart Anderson (NOTE: no title – no doctorate, no real qualifications). You can view Dr. Matloff's analysis HERE: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/NFAP2.txt where Dr Matloff basically shows that NFAP's Stuart Anderson basically doesn't know what he is talking about (although Anderson probably used THIS BOOK for reference: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-.....0393310728 ).
IOnGov| 10.28.10 @ 2:01AM
The following study compares the government pay data for H-1Bs to the government's wage statistics for U.S. workers and shows that H-1Bs overall make substantially less than U.S. workers:
Low Salaries for Low Skills: Wages and Skill Levels for H-1B Computer Workers, 2005
http://www.cis.org/LowSalariesforLowSkills-H1B
See how much your company underpays its H-1B workers in the appendix to the Low Salaries / Low Skills article:
http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407data.pdf
IOnGov| 10.28.10 @ 2:02AM
The following article discusses the real agenda behind the drive to increase the H-1B quota and the research that refutes claims that there are not enough highly skilled tech workers in the U.S. citizen population:
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/tec.....90632.html
Basically the real agenda behind “The Nobel Case for Immigration” is a pitch for a cheap labor subsidy entitlement, kind of like welfare for corporations and greedy management who are too incompetent to make money through real hard work. ComputerWorld quotes Free Market economist Milton Friedman on the subject of H-1Bs:
“Nobel economist Milton Friedman scoffs at the idea of the government stocking a farm system for the likes of Microsoft and Intel. "There is no doubt," he says, "that the [H-1B] program is a benefit to their employers, enabling them to get workers at a lower wage, and to that extent, it is a subsidy."
http://www.computerworld.com/s.....t._Subsidy
IOnGov| 10.28.10 @ 2:11AM
The following study refutes the phony NFAP propaganda, noting:
"H-1B and Job Growth
There have been published claims that H-1B visas create jobs. Both the Wall Street Journal5 and The Economist6 have asserted on their editorial pages that each H-1B visa creates five additional jobs. If that kind of relationship existed, the H-1B program should be creating around 500,000 to 1,000,000 new jobs a year. This alleged job creation is so large that it would be immediately apparent in the data.
It simply is not there. Statistically, there is no linear correlation whatsoever between H-1B visas and job growth."
H-1B Visa Numbers: No Relationship to Economic Need
http://www.cis.org/node/222
The Bottom of the Pay Scale: Wages for H-1B Computer Programmers
http://www.cis.org/PayScale-H1BWages
EngiNERD| 10.28.10 @ 12:35PM
Want to learn the "TRUTH" on the issue of American Job Destruction (H-1B visas) check the following:
www.eiass.com/E-Newsletters.htm
walterbyrd | 10.29.10 @ 7:24AM
Practically all H1Bs are ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. Jobs that could be done by Americans. The US has the O-1 visa for truly exception.
Articles like this want the readers to think that all H1Bs are geniuses, and the H1B is the only way to bring those geniuses into the US. Notice the way the article goes on about "immigrants have done this and that!" Therefore, we need more H1Bs!" But H1Bs are not immigrants. The H1B was specifically created to replace US workers with cheaper offshore workers.
0xFFFFFFFF| 10.29.10 @ 10:35AM
Want to get rich? Buy more lottery tickets! "One of them may be a winner!" Same idiotic logic that the authors of this editorial recommend.
Rajesh| 10.29.10 @ 6:28PM
H-1bs have many advantages. Many Indians like Azim Premji are now billionaires because of H-1bs .
It is much better to have a professional system modeled on ethnical specialization. What is wrong with having Indians specialize in all Engineering, IT and science type jobs. Americans can concentrate on sales and public relations jobs.
Caste system is good. This is the natural way. Not sure why so many Americans keep complaining about implementing caste in IT and engineering hiring. Americans just shut up
twins.fan| 10.30.10 @ 6:07PM
This is more propaganda presented by Alex Nowrasteh, a socalled policy analyst at the socalled Competitive Enterprise Institute. This Competitive Enterprise Institute receives its funding from Philip Morris, Exxon Oil, and Texaco to present their positions on the issue of the day. If you want to know what Big Tobacco and Big Oil think about issues, Alex Nowrasteh makes a living by being a conduit for that information. Don't think for one second that any research caused him to come to his opinion; he simply presents the opinions of the people that fund this right wing public relations outfit.
Just a few years ago when Mr Nowrasteh was in diapers, the Competitive Enterprise was spreading stories about the wonders of the Tobacco Industry. That was not long ago. Recently, Mr Nowrasteh was successful in getting his high school education and college degree which entitles him to present the propaganda supported by the financial benefactors of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Big Oil and Big Tobacco.
Philip| 3.10.11 @ 3:45PM
I went to the Nobel website and looked at almost 70
Nobel prize winners mostly from the last 10 or 20 years.
I found that
US citizens received 42
European immigrants received 18
Africa immigrants received 1
Japanese/Chinese Immigrants received 7
Indian immigrants received 1
Clearly U.S citizens and european immigrants received
most of the nobel prizes.
weddingdresses | 6.23.11 @ 5:45AM
I went to the Nobel website and looked at almost 70
Nobel prize winners mostly from the last 10 or 20 years.
I found that
US citizens received 42
European immigrants received 18
Africa immigrants received 1
Japanese/Chinese Immigrants received 7
Indian immigrants received 1
Clearly U.S citizens and european immigrants received
most of the nobel prizes.
POST American| 8.9.11 @ 9:47AM
-----------------BOTOMLESS LINE---------------------
Cut to the chase!
"We ARE using MASSIVE third world
immigration to DESTROY British culture
beyond repair once and for all --FOREVER."
-Fmr PM TONY BLAIR
(Daily Mail interview)
I think we know where things stand regarding
the overall nature of contemprary immigration.