Category Archives: Immigration Blog

Immigration Blog, Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

Hard to Believe We Made It

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This is the immigration story of Mr. Prabhakar Joshi, sent to USINPAC in response to the White House’s appeal for immigration stories to help frame robust immigration policies. The same has been sent to the White House as well.  

The year was 1963. We were citizens of India. My wife, Savita, got an admission and assistantship to work on her doctorate program in the Texas Woman’s University (TWU), Denton, TX. She did not want to go alone and I did not want to leave her. United States would not grant me a visa unless I had a work offer in hand. So my wife and I sent a letter to her major professor, Dr. P.B.Mack, to offer a job. She immediately agreed to give part-time work and sent us a letter to that effect. We were jubilant.

But that would not clear our road. My supervisor would not let me leave the Home Department, Govt. of Maharashtra state, because he claimed that he gave me promotions and I was working in Special Branch dealing with secret and confidential matters. I was frustrated. I petitioned to another officer holding a parallel position. He agreed and sent the papers to the ultimate authority, the Secretary of the Dept. He approved. We were jubilant again.

Then there was another hitch. The Reserve Bank of India would not let us take more than $7.40 each. Why? China had attacked India and the government wanted to save all the dollars. We wrote to a pen-friend in Louisiana, who was a Secretary to Governor. She promised $200 instantly when we arrive in the USA.

Passport was a hassle. Without using the good offices of my father who was the president of Thane Congress and my father in law who was a State senator (member of Legislative council), Bombay, & the chief of a national political party we received our passports and visas faster than the normal speed.

After a lot of thinking, we took leave from our work places, the Home Dept. for me and the SNDT, University for Savita, and decided to embark. Took loans to meet our huge expenses and got to a travel agent. Asked him to send us by a ship to England to save money and then by air to USA.

Our journey on a ship was very enjoyable except one night’s sea sickness. Finally, when arrived in New York, we got those $200 at a telegraph office. Took a taxi to the bus station. The driver asked for a tip. We asked for the change. Took the change and told him that since you are forcing us for a tip we are not giving any.

We bought 2 bus tickets to Denton, TX. A few dollars were left. Therefore did not eat on the way; only one cup of coffee for both of us. In Denton, a pen-friend had booked a one bed room apartment for us. Paid rent and all the money was gone.

Next day went to register at the Univ. of Texas. They won’t complete the process unless the fee was paid. We asked to see the treasurer, who in turn sent us to the Univ. President. He allowed us 10 days after which our names would be removed from the univ. if not paid.

We went to a bank; showed our credentials and offered my wife’s golden jewelry in exchange for the loan. The loan was approved. We took only the amount necessary for our fees and refused to take more.

Thus we got enrolled. I used to walk to the Univ.  two miles, one way, with a bag full of books in hand, in cold and in summer. After a month, a car stopped and asked me “are you at the Univ. of TX? I answered yes. He asked why did I walk? I told “ walking is a good exercise”. He smiled and offered a ride—every day. Next year, we bought a bicycle for $8 at a Police auction. My wife would sit on the bar while I drove for shopping. Some waived from their windows. In two years we completed our degrees and got employed. Then we brought our 8-year old son, Chandrashekhar, who was left with my parents/his grandparents. This much story is enough this time.

(Do you have an immigration story you would like to share? Write to USINPAC at info@usinpac.com)

Immigration Blog

H1B applicants not the best?

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Guest post by Madhu Nair

By definition, the H1B is a non-immigrant visa issued by the U.S. allowing companies to recruit foreign nationals in specialty occupations under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The act, practiced by a number of multi-national companies, has been their gateway to some of the best talents in the world. Aspiring workers from emerging economies like India and China have been quick to catch in on the rush. The practice gave companies an edge over their peers as it reduced their working capital, increased efficiency and scaled up their businesses. For employees, on the other hand, this was an opportunity to realize and live the American Dream.

But if a recent report is to be believed, the quality of H1B workers does not fit the category of “the best and the brightest”. Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California in Davis along with the Economic Policy Institute, published a study which compared U.S. and foreign IT workers’ salaries, rates of PhD awards, doctorates earned and employment in research and development to determine if H1B visa holders had skills beyond those of U.S. IT workers. As per Matloff, the study did not give any indication of exceptional talent among the H1B holders. He says, “We thus see that no best and brightest trend was found for the former foreign students in either computer science or electrical engineering,” He further writes, “On the contrary, in the CS case the former foreign students appear to be somewhat less talented on average, as indicated by their lower wages, than the Americans.”

Nevertheless, managers at top companies insist they still are not able to source the best minds domestically, forcing them to look beyond boundaries. For Peter Cappelli, professor of management and director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School, this does not sound reasonable enough. In a Wall Street Journal article in October 2011, he argues, “Some of the complaints about skill shortages boil down to the fact that employers can’t get candidates to accept jobs at the wages offered. That’s an affordability problem, not a skill shortage.”

For countries such as India and China, who account for a major share in the H1B program, this should set alarm bells ringing as it may affect their nationals directly. Coming to India, the number of H1B visa approvals saw an upward trend for the year 2012. In the fiscal year 2012, 130,000 H category visas were issued as against 114,000 issued in FY 2011, an increase of 15%. The year, however, saw a 26% increase in denial rate with respect to the number of applications. The rise in denials was mainly attributed to the growing concerns over the business models used by Indian IT consulting companies. This led to heightened scrutiny by the consulate officials which saw the number of approvals go down.

With U.S. still recovering from the 2008 crash and Eurozone yet to come out of the sovereign debt crisis, the current scenario does not look good either. While there is no immediate threat to H1B workers, a relook at the quality of education may perhaps save them the axe. India and China both boast of a large number of highly skilled workers. However, with the current report out, officials and analysts in the U.S. may hesitate to hire anybody from these countries.

The solution, however complex it may be, lies in accurately nipping the problem at the source. There is a need for governments to work together towards a future void of any such conflicts that may lead to a human resource problem. The interests of US’ domestic workers need to be protected, whereas those of H1B applicants also need to be carefully studied. A pragmatic and sensible solution will not only prevent discontent among many, but also lead to a better environment at workplaces.

 

Immigration Blog, Indian-Americans and U.S. Politics Blog

Politics & Pills – The Startup Visa

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For years dozens of Silicon Valley’s brightest and most highly respected entrepreneurs like Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Reid Hoffman, and Eric Reis have been trying to convince Congress and the White House for the urgent need of a “start-up visa” that would create a special visa category for foreign entrepreneurs who have raised capital from qualified American investors  (There’s even a documentary film on the subject, http://startingupinamerica.com/ ).   For three years the issue was buried as a casualty of election politics over ‘outsourcing’ and related issues.

Amazingly enough, a bipartisan Senate bill expected to be introduced this month, aims to get 75,000 new “entrepreneur visas” every year to founders who raise $100,000 for new ventures that hire at least two employees within a year.  The bill also would create 50,000 visas per year for foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM).  Upon hearing the news, the valley cheered…for five minutes.  Because then the boom was quickly lowered.

President Obama and top Senate Democrats have said they are highly supportive of visas for STEM graduates and high-tech entrepreneurs, but are insisting those issues must be tied to package that includes establishing a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants in America illegally.

Last November, the House passed a stand-alone bill that would have given visas to immigrants in high-tech fields.  President Obama opposed the bill, and the White House said at the time it “does not support narrowly tailored proposals that do not meet the president’s long-term objectives with respect to comprehensive immigration reform.”

Passing the Start-up Act in many ways is a step towards the America that needs to be re-captured:  As the global leader in innovation and technology, that creates hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs in growth oriented fields. The America which is able to compete with emerging markets in Asia and attracts the best talent.  The poison pill of linking skilled and unskilled immigration is another step down into the morass, where political expediency and vote-bank politics always trumps the need to solve difficult problems.  It’s a poor choice for America that desperately needs jobs and growth.

Immigration Blog

Reforms That Would Help Employer-Sponsored Immigrants

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Indians wait longer than other potential employment-based immigrants. That means reforms to America’s employer-sponsored immigration system are likely to help many Indians, as well other skilled professionals. There are several actions Congress or the executive branch can take that will reduce wait times and provide substantial relief to employers and skilled immigrants.

STEM Exemption for Skilled Immigrants

First, Congress can exempt from the green card quotas immigrants with a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. university in a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) field. This provision has been included in past legislation by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and some others. Congress could expand this measure to go beyond only degrees in those fields or to include individuals who received a Ph.D. in a technical field from abroad. Research has shown those who receive their degree abroad arrive in the United States with substantial human capital, garnered without any U.S. expense, but also may be among the finest in their fields.

Count Only Principals, Not Dependents, Toward Annual Quota

Second, a new law could count only the principal employment-based immigrants, not their dependents, against the 140,000 annual employment-based quota. One reason for the large green card backlogs is that annual H-1B temporary visa quotas count only the principal recipient of an H-1B visa, whereas about half of the 140,000 quota for employment-based immigrant visas is utilized by the dependents (spouse and/or children) of the sponsored immigrant. In addition, Congress could raise the 140,000 annual quota to a higher level.

Utilize Unused Employment-Based Green Cards

Third, lawmakers could provide additional green card relief by including numbers previously allocated by Congress that were not utilized in prior years, such as due to agency processing delays. The State Department estimates there are more than 300,000 unused employment-based green cards allocated in previous years that have never gone to recipients due to administrative issues.

Eliminate the Per Country Limit

Fourth, Congress could eliminate the per country limit on employment-based immigrants. H.R. 3012 would accomplish this feat over a four-year period. The legislation passed the House and, at least for now, is being delayed by a “hold” on the legislation by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA). Liberalizing rules for employment-based green cards is less controversial than other proposed immigration reforms, as evidenced by the overwhelming vote in the House of Representatives on H.R. 3012.

Allow Filing of Adjustment of Status Before Priority Date

Fifth, allow individuals to file for Adjustment of Status (Form I-485) prior to when his or her immigrant visa become available. Currently, skilled foreign nationals mired in the employment-based green card backlog are often not able to accept promotions or change jobs without the risk of starting their green card applications again. For those waiting a long time the fear of waiting even longer is significant. That would change if early filing of Adjustment of Status were permitted.

If U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services were to allow individuals waiting for green cards to file for Adjustment of Status even if their priority date has not been reached it would facilitate a more normal existence for those stuck in the green cad backlog. For example a spouse would likely become eligible to work legally in the United States. Also, it is likely the ability to travel in and out of America would become easier, helping people both personally and professionally.

Implementing any or all of the reforms recommended here would aid U.S. employers, immigrants and the American economy, keeping more talent and resources inside the country.

Immigration Blog

The Contributions of Skilled Immigrants to America

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Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with American-born Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonoth of Israel. Their work using x-ray crystallography has provided “fundamental information about the workings of the cellular machinery at the atomic level and is already being exploited by pharmaceutical companies working to make new, more effective antibiotics,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

Nobel Prizes

Immigrants to America have a long history of achievement in Nobel Prizes and other forms of international recognition in the sciences. “It is fairly clear that Americans with recent foreign roots are overrepresented in any classification of Americans who have brought honor and recognition to the United States,” concluded the National Research Council, a part of the national Academy of Sciences, in its 1997 report The New Americans. As of 1997, the National Research Council found immigrants made up between one-quarter to one-third of the U.S. Nobel Prize winners: 26 percent in chemistry, 32 percent in physics, 31 percent in physiology medicine, 31 percent in economics and 27 percent in literature.

Some who oppose immigration more generally – or high skill immigration specifically argue they have no problem with America admitting Nobel Prize winners, just not others of lesser distinction. The problem is even America’s recent Nobel Prize winners were often just promising students when they first began the process of immigrating to the United States. For example, Elizabeth Blackburn first came to America in 1975, more than three decades before earning the Nobel Prize in Medicine and 10 years before she published her seminal paper that led to the prize. More generally, there are valuable contributions that can be made to the economy and society that would never be recognized by a Nobel Prize Committee.

Dr. William Ganz developed a “revolutionary catheter to measure blood flow and heart functions” with co-inventor Dr. Jeremy Swan, an immigrant from Ireland. Ganz, a Jew in Czechoslovakia during the Nazi invasion, managed to survive World War II and came to Los Angeles in 1966, no longer wishing to live under a communist regime. The Swan-Ganz device produced “a phenomenal impact on the understanding of cardiovascular disease,” according to Dr. Jeffery W. Moses, director of the Center for Interventional Vascular Therapy at Columbia University Medical Center. In the 1980s, Ganz worked with Dr. P.K. Shah, an immigrant from India and director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, in developing clot-dissolving therapies now considered standard for helping victims of heart attacks.

Research on the Contributions of the Foreign-Born

Paula Stephan (Georgia State University) and Sharon G. Levin (University of Missouri-St. Louis) performed extensive research on the contributions of the foreign-born in 6 areas of scientific achievement. Those areas included election to the National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering, the launching of biotechnology companies and authors of scientific publications. After examining a study group of more than 4,500 scientists and engineers, Stephan and Levin wrote, “Individuals making exceptional contributions to science and engineering in the U.S. are disproportionately drawn from the foreign-born.  We conclude that immigrants have been a source of strength and vitality for U.S. science and, on balance, the U.S. appears to have benefitted from the educational investments made by other countries.”

Among the findings in the Stephan-Levin research were that 19.2 percent of the engineers elected to the National Academy of Engineering are foreign-born, compared to the 13.9 percent of the engineers who were foreign-born in 1980. Also, members of the National Academy of Sciences are “disproportionately foreign-born;” 23.8 percent of the scientists and engineers elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are foreign-born, compared to 18.3 percent non-natives in the U.S. workforce.

According to Stephan and Levin, “We find the foreign-born to be disproportionately represented among those making exceptional contributions in the physical sciences . . . more than half of the ‘outstanding’ authors in the physical sciences are foreign-born compared to just 20.4 percent of physical scientists who are foreign-born in the scientific labor force as of 1980.”

Conclusion

Stephan and Levin found, “We also find evidence contributions to U.S. science and engineering are disproportionately drawn from the foreign-educated, both at the undergraduate and at the graduate level.”

The research by Stephan and Levin indicate America may be wise to make it easier for those who receive their schooling abroad to immigrate, particularly at the Ph.D. level. But whether we make it easier for those who receive their degrees in America or abroad, it is clear that immigrants make important contributions to science, engineering and related fields in America.