Our unwelcome mat
President Trump, who talks obsessively about the supposed inflow of bad people over the southern border, is paying no attention to the in-progress outflow of exemplary people to the north. In fact, he’s enabling the accelerating exodus. America’s signature high-tech visa program is called the H-1B. Each year, 85,000 foreign workers with special skills — computer programmers, medical researchers and more — get a ticket to live and work here temporarily.
And, in the process, feed the innovation ecosystem that makes the United States the envy of the world, particularly in the fast-growing sectors that will dominate tomorrow’s economy.
Each H-1B worker on average supports the jobs of four Americans. Contrary to stereotype, foreign workers tend to help drive native worker wages in their sectors higher — particularly in tech centers like New York City.
Not if Trump can help it. Even as he wages war against undocumented immigrants, separating them from the low-wage work they do, he is doing his darndest to discourage the entry of legal immigrants and the engine of productivity they sustain.
It already takes months and navigation through a complex web of red tape for a sponsor to get one of too few available H-1Bs okayed.
The federal Department of Homeland Security is now putting up a series of hurdles to make it tougher to qualify — and slashing work permits for spouses of some visa holders.
Which will make the U.S. that much less attractive for the world’s best and brightest.
Meantime, Canada is laying down fresh asphalt for those very same people to come on in and set up shop. Its government’s Global Skills Strategy is promising work permits in two weeks.
In July, nearly two-thirds of high-growth Canadian companies indicated that they’d seen a jump in applications from U.S.-based workers.
Our northern neighbor’s hospitality is why a budding company called Datalogue — founded at New York City’s own sparkling new Cornell Tech campus — is expanding not here but in Montreal.
Multiply that by 100 or 1,000, and the risk to American competitiveness comes into scarily sharp focus.
New York is doing what it can to welcome global talent: In 2016, the city launched an initiative to sponsor people for H-1Bs in partnership with city universities.
But the number of applicants has fallen precipitously since its introduction, at the mercy of a hostile and uncertain federal climate.
The H-1B program isn’t perfect. Some companies have cynically used it to supercharge outsourcing; such abuses must be aggressively policed.
But when used as designed, it’s one of the ways an aging nation ensures an ongoing infusion of entrepreneurial energy.
Why a man who promises to make America great again wants to threaten that, we have no idea. On second thought, maybe we do.