By David Wagner, KBPS News for Fronteras
SAN DIEGO – Lawmakers and CEOs want more high-skilled immigrants. Tech companies have been lobbying hard to get more visas for these workers, and Washington has been listening. But what do the high-skilled immigrants want? They all have very different ideas about how to fix the system.
Every year, on April Fool’s day, American tech companies are off to the races. That’s when they can start applying for H-1B visas, which give foreign workers with advanced degrees and specialty skills the right to work here in the U.S.
This was a bad year to be a latecomer. In just five days, the number of applications shot passed the number of available visas. As a result, H-1Bs won’t necessarily go to the most qualified candidates. They’ll go to whoever’s name gets pulled in a random lottery.
Nathan Fletcher is a senior director at Qualcomm, a major employer of H-1B workers in San Diego. He thinks the system is getting to be a bit absurd.
FLETCHER: “You have a group of students which are American educated students, often just a few miles away at UCSD that have the skills and the talents that we’re looking for. And they can get a visa to study and learn, and the taxpayers can subsidize their education, but they can’t get a visa to stay and work.”
But how do can we fix a program for high-skilled immigrant workers that isn’t, well, working? The Senate’s proposed plan would multiply the number of H-1B visas handed out in coming years. Aside from a few other tweaks, they basically want to take the program currently in place and expand it.
But to hear it from the immigrants who’ve actually gone through this program, that solution misses the mark.
CHANDRA: “I think increasing the cap is not going to help.”
That’s Sandeep Chandra, an Indian national who has been living in the U.S. for the last 13 years. Sandeep and his wife, Pallavi Adyanthaya, are both here on H-1B visas. He works at the San Diego Supercomputer Center. She works at Qualcomm.
They worry that lawmakers won’t address the main problem they and so many others in their position face. They can’t get green cards.
Even though Sandeep and Pallavi plan to settle down here, their future in the U.S. is uncertain. There’s a possibility that the project Sandeep is working on could end next year.
CHANDRA: “If I don’t find a job, I am possibly looking at going back. I would have to leave. You put in 13, 15 years, and you are still faced with that situation.”
H-1B visas allow workers to stay in the U.S. only on the condition that they keep their jobs. And if they seek out new work once they’ve here, they have to forfeit their spot in line for a green card.
Pallavi says some employers are exploiting these restrictions on worker mobility. She sees certain companies paying foreign workers lower wages.
ADYANTHAYA: “They do get to leverage that aspect as well — not just tie you in, but tie you in at that wage. Because they know you’re not going anywhere.”
Ironically, Pallavi’s point echoes those made by critics of the very program that allows her to work here. These visas are supposed to plug a skills gap. Companies like Facebook and Microsoft say American schools simply aren’t graduating enough citizens in high-tech fields, so they need to import workers from overseas.
But economists at the Economic Policy Institute and consultants from the Boston Consulting Group say these companies are greatly exaggerating that skills gap, if it even exists at all. They accuse employers of favoring foreign workers because they can’t quit. And because they’ll work for a lot less than citizens.
Sandeep and Pallavi have an idea that might address the concerns of such critics and tech companies. Instead of boosting the number of H-1B visas, why not give out more green cards to high-skilled immigrants?
CHANDRA: “People who come here and get a master’s degree — they shouldn’t probably have to go through a visa process. They should just go through an immigration process and figure out a way to get them green cards.”
If we gave these workers permanent residency status earlier, employers would have a lot more applicants to choose from. And the immigrants themselves wouldn’t have to put up with unfair treatment.
ADYANTHAYA: “We’re doing everything right, we’re going the legal route, we’re abiding in all our requirements. The least we want at the end of the day is a level playing field.”
These suggestions might get drowned out in Washington, though. With 11 million undocumented immigrants possibly getting a path to citizenship, things could get tense. Sandeep and Pallavi say they’re not hopeful that reform will put them any closer to a green card.
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