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Immigration in these trying times

By Annie Banerjee

Yes, we are in an economic recession, and maybe even in a depression. And in situations like this, it is always easy to blame the immigrant workers. After all its natural to feel resentment when American workers are out of jobs. Thus there are a number of bills in the Congress seeking to restrict H-1B (the visa for professionals) numbers.

But lets face the reality.

1. The Citizenship and Immigration fees for an H-1B visa is $2320/- per person. Out of that, The Government collects $1500/- per visa to "train" US people. A government doling out bail money needs to collect money somehow.

2. The Employer on the other hand would not pay such an exorbitant amount if they could find American workers to do the job.

3. The H-1B allows us to get the brightest and the best brains from other countries. If we want to get out of this recession, we would need this global brains. This is a complex global problem and needs to be addressed globally.

4. We now have a global economy and need global cooperation to solve this mess. We need global talent. If we follow the 1930s restrictionist policies, we will not be able to maintian our competitiveness in the 21st Century world.

5. Market forces rather than Government quotas work best in all situations. For example last year there were 165, 000 visa petitions filed on the first day for the 65, 000 H-1B visa numbers. Obviously, this year, that number will be far less. So we should do away with artificial quotas and let the market control employment.

Contact Houston Immigration Lawyer, Annie Banerjee for more details

Full post as published by US Immigration Matters on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).