H-1B work visa program makes America stronger
In the 65 years the H-1B visa has existed, it has been the backbone of a robust work-based immigration system that has helped make the U.S. economy the world’s most powerful.
Created by Congress in 1952, H-1B is a nonimmigrant work visa for highly educated workers. The current framework for the H-1B program has largely been in place since the Immigration Act of 1990, the year I got my law license.
As I near my fourth decade practicing law, the H-1B program is in dire need of updating. We need to have quotas that are market-driven -- they should increase when labor markets are tight and contract when unemployment rises.
The application period for 2019 H-1B visas was in the first week of this month, and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) just announced they had received more than a year’s worth of applications and will conduct a lottery among nearly 200,000 applications filed.
Nationally, the H-1B program is seen as a program designed to supply hightech workers to Silicon Valley. But the program is vital to states like Tennessee.
The H-1B visa has brought in top research scientists to institutions like St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center.
Tennessee has a desperate shortage of doctors, particularly in rural areas and in inner city communities, and hundreds of physicians are working on H-1B visas across the state.
Tennessee has difficulty finding enough math, science and foreign language teachers to meet students’ needs, and H-1B has been used by school systems to ensure students have enough qualified teachers.
Most Americans knew little about this “secret sauce” visa program to attract the world’s talent until the 2016 election. But it had long been on the radar of anti-immigrant protectionists, who hitched their star to an unlikely candidate, Donald Trump. He has hired many H-1B workers and married a woman who used an H-1B visa herself to enter the U.S.
Nonetheless, he campaigned against the H-1B visa and has embraced the anti-immigrant agenda. His executive order called “Buy American Hire American” was a declaration of war on H-1B. Denials of H-1B applications are up dramatically, and USCIS plans to end a program allowing work authorization for spouses of H-1B workers waiting in long green card lines.
It would a catastrophic mistake to eliminate H-1B. It does need reform AND expansion because it creates far more jobs for Americans than for others. Efforts are being made in Congress to do both.
The program does need reforms. With a lack of H-1B workers for American employers who have unfilled positions, staffing companies should not be able to use H-1B visas to outsource existing positions. Likewise, there should be a limit to the percentage of an employer’s workforce that can be employed on an H-1B visa.
Reform might also favor the most highly skilled, highly paid, or most indemand foreign workers (like teachers and doctors). And when we attract the best and brightest, they should be able to bring their families and allow their spouses to continue their careers.
We need to have this conversation. We must insist that we have an H-1B program that both meets the demands of our modern economy and can’t be used in a way that hurts American workers. That should happen in 2018.
Greg Siskind is founding partner of Siskind Susser immigration law firm in Memphis.