Tag Archives: Immigration

Immigration Blog

How Well Do Immigrants to America Assimilate?

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Do immigrants assimilate or stay forever apart from American society? This question affects nearly all immigration issues, including family and employment-based immigration, both of which concern many Indian immigrants. A lack of consensus on the issue of assimilation has prevented action on broader immigration reform. In addressing the question of immigrants and assimilation it is useful to look at three areas: wage growth, education and English language acquisition.

Historical Concerns About Assimilation

Concerns about the assimilation of immigrants have been a key part of the debate over immigration for much of our nation’s history. Discussing the restrictions on immigration imposed by Congress in the 1920s, historian Oscar Handlin wrote, “The objections to further immigration from Italy and Poland reflected the objectors’ unfavorable observations of the Italians and the Poles they saw about them. The arguments that Greeks and Slovaks could not become good Americans rested on the premise that the Greeks and Slovaks in the United States had not become good Americans.”

Wage Growth

Jeffery S. Passel, senior research associate, Pew Hispanic Center, has developed techniques to differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants in Census data and to track changes based on years in the country. Passel’s research on immigrant wage growth and other issues demonstrates how important it can be to determine legal status when examining data on assimilation.

Census data show legal immigrants experience significant wage gains over time, even surpassing the average family income of natives, in the case of naturalized citizens. But illegal immigrants do not show that type of income gain based on years in the United States. “Average family income for both legal immigrants and refugees in the U.S. for more that 10 years is only 2 to 3 percent below that of natives,” writes Passel. “For longer term naturalized citizen families, average family income is 23 percent higher than native income.” But the average income level of an illegal immigrant family remains well below the average native family (about 35 percent below) even among illegal immigrants in the country 10 years or longer.

Research that did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants still found significant wage growth among immigrants. Economists Harriet Duleep and Mark Regets found that after a decade in the United States the earnings gap between new immigrants and natives largely disappears, with immigrant wage growth faster than native (6.7 percent vs. 4.4 percent).

Education

A similar story on legal immigrants can be seen in the Pew Hispanic Center’s analysis of Census data on education and immigrants. Overall, 32 percent of legal immigrants have obtained a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 30 percent of natives and 15 percent of illegal immigrants.

What about those who did not finish high school (ages 18-24)? Among illegal immigrants, 49 percent did not graduate high school, compared to 21 percent of legal immigrants and 11 percent of natives. Even among illegal immigrants who completed high school, less than half went on to attend college.

In contrast, among immigrants and natives who have completed high school, more legal immigrants have gone on to attend a college than natives – 73 percent of legal immigrants vs. 70 percent of natives – according to Passel’s research.

Education levels for legal immigrants improve across generations, just as they have historically for Americans. “Turning to the data, educational assimilation appears alive and well,” according to Pia Orrenius, senior economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “High school dropout rates for immigrants improve across generations, dropping from 27 percent in the first generation to below the native average of 8.9 percent in the third generation.”

English Language

Do immigrants and their children learn English? Do they want to learn English? It’s possible many Americans believe the answer is “no.” The data suggest otherwise.

In the report The New Americans, produced by the National Research Council, only 3 percent of immigrants in the country 30 years or more reported not speaking English well in the 1990 Census. This illustrates that assimilation takes place. But also how important it is to make judgments on data that are longitudinal, since newly arriving immigrants can skew the totals.

The story is quite positive with the children of immigrants. According to a Pew Hispanic Center survey, 88 percent of second generation children from Latino immigrant families and 94 percent from the third generation said they spoke English very well.

Contrary to concerns Spanish-speaking immigrants will pass along to their children and grandchildren a proclivity to speak Spanish over English, research shows the opposite is true. A study by Frank Bean and Ruben Rumbaut (both University of California, Irvine) and Douglas Massey (Princeton University) found “Although the generational life expectancy of Spanish is greater among Mexicans in Southern California than other groups, its demise is all but assured by the third generation.”

Bean, Rumbaut and Massey concluded, “Based on an analysis of language loss over the generations, the study concludes that English has never been seriously threatened as the dominant language in America, nor is it under threat today.”

Conclusion

The conclusion one draws from the data is that today’s immigrants are indeed assimilating. As a group, they are gainfully employed and experience wage growth over time, education levels rise, and acquisition of the English language increases, particularly in the second generation. This does not mean all immigrants assimilate. But it does mean that, overall, the American “melting pot” continues to work.

Immigration Blog

Responsible Ways to Increase Compliance with H-1B Visas

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While critics often overstate problems with H-1B temporary visas, it is good policy to eliminate H-1B visa fraud in a practical manner. Perhaps the best way is to empower the potential victims of such fraud – H-1B visa holders. To the extent the current legal regime is insufficient to protect H-1B professionals it can result in individuals being taken advantage of, which harms the H-1B visa holder and, potentially, American workers.

Even if the typical H-1B visa holder is not an indentured servant, as critics allege, situations can arise that leave an individual vulnerable to exploitation. For example, one type of case is when a professional enters the United States but goes a number of months without working or being paid. Such an employer has acted illegally, since it is explicitly against the law to “bench” or place someone in a nonproductive capacity and not pay the individual.

Recommendations

To address these and other situations a number of measures can be taken that would enhance protections for H-1B visa holders and, indirectly, U.S. professionals.

First, Congress, USCIS and DOL should explicitly protect the immigration status of any H-1B visa holder who files a complaint alleging a violation by his employer. Whistleblower protections exist under current law. However, these provisions are not widely known, carry a degree of ambiguity, and are virtually unpublicized by the Department of Labor and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

More explicit language by Congress can be combined with effective action by government agencies to protect the immigration status of whistleblowers. This should not require an employer to pay a salary to an individual simply because he or she filed a complaint that is pending, since that can easily be abused. And there should be discouragement in the law or regulations regarding the filing of frivolous claims. However, making it clear that an H-1B visa holder who files a complaint can stay in the United States in H-1B status (and seek other employment) while a complaint is adjudicated would increase protections for the individuals and the integrity of the H-1B visa process.

Second, a process should be in place for an H-1B visa holder to file for private arbitration, if necessary, to retrieve disputed wages owed. Such a dispute may not rise to the level of a formal complaint or perhaps an individual feels uncomfortable contacting federal authorities over a private wage issue. While government bureaucrats are not universally loved in America, they are loathed in other nations. The right to arbitration of a wage dispute, which could also carry protection of immigration status, would help provide greater employee-employer balance for a group of people concerned with their immigration status in the United States.

Third, increase employment-based green card quotas and eliminate the per country limit for skilled immigrants. The possibility one would need to re-start the process with a new employer can limit the mobility of someone in H-1B status, which would make them less likely to complain. While most employers only want people to work for them who wish to be there, some employers could take advantage of a situation created by Congress not increasing the quotas for employment-based green cards.

Fourth, all H-1B visa holders should receive the key documents relevant to their case and H-1B status. This includes a copy of the labor condition application, which carries wage information and, for example, the I-797 approval notice. USCIS and the Department of Labor should seek to ensure H-1B visa holders are receiving the documentation they are entitled to, as well as information related to protection of immigration status and how to file complaints.

Finally, Congress should avoid enacting measures that would be so restrictive as to encourage U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign nationals abroad rather than in the United States. Two such actions would be to apply “recruitment” and “nondisplacement” attestations to all U.S. employers. There is no evidence of a need to expand the scope or application of these attestations. In the days of flexible job functions and multiple locations such provisions can cause a General Counsel to conclude his or her company may be unlikely to be in compliance if they hire any H-1B professionals. The safer alternative would be to expand outside the United States rather than risk such legal liability.

Current Law Addresses Key Concerns

Current law already addresses the main concerns of critics. Under Section 413 of the American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act (passed in 1998), a company found committing a “willful” violation of the law regulating the proper wages for H-1B visa holders and displacing a U.S. worker is barred for three years from hiring any foreign nationals in the United States and faces up to a $35,000 fine per violation.

The problem is that the solutions proposed by some critics are essentially thinly disguised efforts to prevent employers from obtaining H-1B visas for any skilled foreign nationals, not really an attempt to address abuse. If one were concerned with companies committing fraud, then strict new requirements would not impact businesses that already ignore the current rules but rather would affect those who obey the law.

Immigration Blog

New Research Reveals Benefits of High Skill Immigration

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The main argument made against providing more green cards or temporary visas for high skilled immigrants is that it would mean fewer jobs for U.S. workers. Such concern is based on the mistaken impression that there is only a fixed number of jobs and the entry of any newcomer to the labor market must mean bad news for an incumbent jobholder. Of course, that concern does not reflect how a market economy functions.

Now there is new evidence from a respected economist that high skilled foreign nationals create more jobs for Americans. The report from American Enterprise Institute and the Partnership for a New American Economy – a copy of the study can be found here – was conducted by Madeline Zavodny, a professor of economics at Agnes Scott College and former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

The report carried four main conclusions. First, that immigrants with advanced degrees, particularly in STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) fields create more jobs for U.S.-born workers. According to Zavodny, “The data comparing employment among the fifty states and the District of Columbia show that from 2000 to 2007, an additional 100 foreign-born workers in STEM fields with advanced degrees from U.S. universities is associated with an additional 262 jobs among U.S. natives.”

Second, the study found positive employment benefits from both low skill (H-2B) and high skill (H-1B) temporary visas. “The data show that states with greater numbers of temporary workers in the H-1B program for skilled workers and H-2B program for less-skilled nonagricultural workers had higher employment among U.S. natives. Specifically, adding 100 H-1B workers results in an additional 183 jobs among U.S. natives. Adding 100 H-2B workers results in an additional 464 jobs for U.S. natives,” according to the analysis.

Third, the research addresses concerns that more immigrants entering the labor force hurt U.S. workers. The study concluded, “The analysis yields no evidence that foreign-born workers, taken in the aggregate, hurt U.S. employment.”

Fourth, immigrants with a high education level are major fiscal contributors to the United States. Zavodny writes, “In 2009, the average foreign-born adult with an advanced degree paid over $22,500 in federal, state, and Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA, or Social Security and Medicare) taxes, while their families received benefits one-tenth that size through government transfer programs like cash welfare, unemployment benefits, and Medicaid.”

Zavodny believes it’s possible the research underestimated the benefits of high skill immigration. “There are two reasons to think that this study, which uses annual, state-level data over a ten-year period, may actually underestimate the job-creating effects of highly skilled immigrants. First, it does not capture long-run effects if the economy benefits more from immigrants in the long run than in the short run (as suggested by other recent research). Second, it does not capture ‘spillover effects’ if immigrants create jobs in states other than the one where they work (for example, more immigration in California leads businesses to also create new jobs at a subsidiary in Indiana).”

The study was praised by elected officials who favor more liberalized immigration policies. “At a time when job creation should be our highest priority, the study released today casts light on some of the greatest potential areas for growth, at no cost to taxpayers,” said New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, co-chair of the Partnership for a New American Economy. “It’s time for Washington to restart the conversation on immigration reform – and to center it on our economic needs.”

While the research is not likely to cause critics of immigration to throw up their hands and concede defeat, the study represents important evidence that America and Americans gain from being open to immigrants.

Immigration Blog

Per Country Limit Bill Continues to Attract Attention

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H.R. 3012, “The Fairness to High-Skilled Immigrants Act,” is a small bill, anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 pages shorter than the bills that normally attract a good deal of media attention. Yet H.R. 3012 continues to attract major editorial and news attention.

The bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives 389 to 15, would eliminate the per country limit for employment-based immigrants. That would especially help highly skilled individuals from India and China waiting a long time for green cards. The bill would also raise the per country limit from family-sponsored immigrants from 7 to 15 percent.

The Wall Street Journal editorial page used its powerful voice to call for Senate passage of the bill. “For businesses looking to hire advanced-degree candidates or skilled workers, the end of the cap is a good thing,” argued the editorial. “The 7% solution sought to make the American dream accessible to people from every nation. But today’s reality is that American universities are graduating a high number of foreign-born engineers, computer geeks, scientists, mathematicians and nurses that come from a narrow list of countries. The U.S. will be more prosperous by letting graduates who land jobs stay permanently.” (Find the editorial here, registration may be required.)

But the Wall Street Journal noted the legislation is not the ultimate solution to the employment-based green card problem: “The trouble is that the House bill does nothing to address the real problem: 140,000 green cards a year for advanced-degree and skilled workers is far too few. By refusing to increase the number, or to make a special category of green cards automatically available for American university graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, Congress is again delaying reform that could help the lackluster U.S. economy.”

In an editorial titled “Tinkering at Immigration’s Margins,” the Washington Post also weighed in on the bill, but not as favorably as the Wall Street Journal. “A bill passed by the House of Representatives last month would grant a few thousand more green cards annually to Indian and Chinese engineers, software designers and scientists, mostly at the expense of Korean, Filipino and Mexican engineers, software designers and scientists,” wrote the Washington Post. “Since the legislation makes no overall change in the paltry number of green cards available, hundreds of thousands of highly skilled employees already working in the United States on short-term visas will remain backlogged in the system, in many cases waiting for more than a decade to become legal, permanent residents. That’s what passes for immigration reform in Congress these days.”

Not surprisingly, the legislation has also made news in India. The Economic Times of India took a different tact from its American counterparts, focusing on the impact of current U.S. immigration law on the lives of individuals. (Find article here.) It cited the example of an Indian IT (information technology) specialist who came to the United States in 2003 on an H-1B visa. His employer filed for his green card in 2004 in the third preference and he is still waiting. “He is living in the U.S. under annual extensions of H1B, and every time he leaves the US, he has to apply for advance parole with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, so that he is not stopped from re-entering,” reports the newspaper. “Kumar doesn’t know when his application for green card will become current.”

The article notes it could take another 10 years or more. “Living in such uncertainty is tough. He had started toying with the idea of giving up the green card dream and returning to India. But that was till last week when the U.S. House of Representatives passed ‘The Fairness to High-Skilled Immigrants Act.’”

As of this writing, H.R. 3012 remains held up in the Senate by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA). No one can be certain whether he intends simply to slow down the bill, force it through the committee process, or see that it never comes up for a vote.

Immigration Blog

The Prospects Look Good for Bill to Eliminate Per Country Limit

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Legislation that will have a positive direct impact on Indian nationals passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday, November 29. The vote was an overwhelming 389 to 15.

HR 3012, “The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act,” would eliminate the per country limit for employment-based immigrants in a transition over a four-year period. The primary effect of the bill would be to shorten the wait times substantially for highly educated foreign nationals from India and China. The part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that limits nationals of any one country to 7 percent of the total employment-based immigrants in a year will be removed the law books. In addition, by raising the family per country limit from 7 percent to 15 percent it would also help long-waiting family-sponsored immigrants from Mexico and the Philippines.

The House Floor

Speaking in favor of the bill on the House floor, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), the chief sponsor of the bill, emphasized that the legislation provided no new green cards. He said the measure was necessary to have the law match the way employers in America hire – based on merit, not country of origin.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) also spoke in favor of the bill. He emphasized the long wait times, pointing out that some nationals from India in the employment-based third preference (EB-3) had been waiting since 2002 for green cards. In support of the bill, Rep. Smith asked: “Why should American employers who seek green cards for skilled foreign workers have to wait longer just because the workers are from India or China?”

On the Democratic side, Representatives Steve Cohen of Tennessee and Jim Moran of Virginia spoke in favor of the bill. (No one spoke against the bill.) Rep. Moran talked about the importance of skilled immigration generally to jobs and business development in Northern Virginia.

Prospects in the Senate

The passage of the bill in the House gave bill supporters new information about the chances for the legislation to move in the Senate. The New York Times reported, “The bill seemed likely to pass easily in the Senate, said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a leading Democrat on immigration.”

Explaining the implications of the bill, The New York Times noted, “By far, the main beneficiaries will be highly skilled immigrants from India and China, including many with master’s degrees and doctorates in science and engineering. Because they come from populous countries that send many people to work here who have advanced science and technology skills, immigrants from those two nations had been forced by the country limits into lines that were many years long and growing much longer.”

An Associated Press article also quoted Senator Schumer, the chair of subcommittee that handles immigration in the Senate Judiciary Committee, who is favorably disposed toward the bill: “Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who heads the Senate Judiciary panel on immigration, said he planned to move the bill as quickly as possible in the Senate, ‘where we expect it to find overwhelming support.’ He said the legislation would ‘remove outdated constraints that prevent us from attracting the kind of innovators who can create job growth in America.’”

An analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy concluded that passing H.R. 3012 would reduce the wait for a newly sponsored foreign national from India in the employment-based third preference (EB-3) to 12 years, far less than the potential wait of several decades under current law. In the employment-based second preference (EB-2), the wait would drop to two or three years, rather than the current 6 years or more for a newly sponsored Indian-born scientist, researcher or engineer sponsored in that category.