Stimulus Package Limits H1-B Visas

Hat-tip to Arpita B.

Solve the Crisis by...Kicking Out the World's Best and Brightest?
Posted by Michael Clemens at 04:01 PM February 17, 2009

The global economic crisis is already creating pressure for the United States to further restrict skilled migration. The economic stimulus act that President Obama signs today limits the ability of many companies receiving stimulus money to freely employ highly skilled foreign workers on H-1B visas. (Read the Act yourself here.) In other words: If we can just kick out of the United States enough bright and highly skilled workers, many of them top U.S.-trained students from developing countries, the crisis will somehow ease.

That's just one example of a trend we can expect to grow: Last Friday at Columbia University I publicly debated one of rising number of Americans who feel that the crisis is a reason to welcome drastically fewer people to this country, even highly skilled workers. "Buy American", via immigration policy, is gaining credibility as a solution to the crisis.

This trend is unfortunate and shameful, for at least three reasons.

Read the rest of the post (including a great graph).

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