Step One: Fix our immigration policy. . .
August 23, 2009
Is anyone else completely confused by our immigration policy here in the United States? Tara Hunt is having to head back to Canada because she can’t stay here unless someone else employees her. Elisa, a school Dallas public school teacher who I go to church with, had to go back to Mexico to wait for a new visa so she could continue to teach. Michael, the help desk manager at Architel has to head back to New Zealand each quarter for a new visa while we wait for his permanent visa. Why don’t we let highly educated immigrants with resources (i.e. money, connections and ideas) come to this country freely? Why limit their access?
Sarah Lacy is reporting that “foreigners attending US grad schools is ‘way’ down.“ Interesting stats:
- this was the first decline in five years (3% overall)
- one in four tech companies are started by immigrants
Why can’t we use some common sense when it comes to immigration? If you are smart, successful and want to stay - why not let you stay? Some of you may suggest, “well it isn’t fair just to let the ‘rich’ come to America”. As my mother explained to me growing up, “life isn’t fair and Mickey Mouse is a rat”. We need to figure out ways to attract educated and motivated people to our shores - immigrants built this country.
In 2006 I decided to put my own immigration proposal in writing. The comments were less than supportive. Specifically, my critics cite economic pressures such as the trade imbalance as reasons we need to retrench and prevent immigrants from taking jobs from Americans. What they fail to realize is that these new immigrants represent the best and the brightest from every corner of the world. We should be welcoming immigrants because they are our greatest asset.
When my ancestors left Europe they were joined by the smartest and most ambitious Europeans. This was good for America. Just take a look at Europes population (double that of the U.S.) and their GDP (approximately the same as the U.S.). Two hundred years ago we started out with very few people and less GDP than Portugal. Today we live in the most prosperous civilization in the history of the planet.
Our biggest risk is the possibility of the United States turning into Europe, e.g. declining population and declining percapita GDP. We need to rethink our policy of limiting immigration. Lets start by allowing the most intelligent and well-educated people from the world become citizens. For every engineer, doctor or programmer that leaves China, India or Russia, the more competitive we become in medicine, technology and science. We should be recruiting the these people, not figuring out how to keep them out.
