Hearing on STEM the TIDE!
Hearing on: "STEM the Tide: Should America Try to Prevent an Exodus of Foreign Graduates of U.S. Universities with Advanced Science Degrees?"
Testimony by VivekWadhwa.
1. The right solution is to significantly increase the numbers of visas that are offered to skilled workers in the EB1-through-3 categories. We also need to remove the per-country limits. If a move such as this proves politically untenable, then the conversion of temporary visas to permanent residencies could be tied to the purchase of a house, of say $250,000 or more in value. 2. We should provide permanent-resident visas for graduates of top U.S. colleges. Given that, among U.S. postgraduate engineering and science students, nearly half of masters and most PhD students are foreign nationals, it makes sense to encourage these students to stay in the U.S. after graduation. Though it will not guarantee that they will stay, it will certainly make it more likely. To limit abuse of this program, it should only apply to degree holders from research universities or universities with established and well-regarded science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. We should also require that students receive job offers from legitimate U.S. corporations. 3. Another solution is to allow skilled workers to get a green card if they start a company that employs Americans. As we noted from our research, the majority of the foreign-born entrepreneurs who started Silicon Valley companies entered the U.S. for education or work. They started companies 13 years, on average, after their arrival in the U.S. So, this was the cohort that had entered the U.S. in the ’80s and early ’90s. A sizeable proportion of the 2000 cohort is stuck in “immigration limbo.” There are tens of thousands of such immigrants who are ready to start companies that create jobs if we let them.
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/...2010052011.pdf
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http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/...0052011_2.html
