‘Border Enforcement’ Bill Driven by Election-Year Politics
A $600-million bill to enhance border enforcement has hit a temporary snag in the Senate, but it is almost inevitable, with an election only a few months away, that Congress and the president will spend yet more money trying to enforce our unworkable immigration laws.
“Getting control of the border” is the buzz phrase of the day for politicians in both parties, from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Never mind that apprehensions are down sharply along our Southwest border with Mexico, mostly I suspect because of the lack of robust job creation in the unstimulated Obama economy.
Meanwhile, since the early 1990s, spending on border enforcement has increased more than 700 percent, and the number of agents along the border has increased five-fold, from 3,500 to more than 17.000. (See pages 3-4 of a January 2010 report from the Center for American Progress and the Immigration Policy Center.) Yet the population of illegal immigrants in America tripled during that period. If this were a federal education program, conservatives would rightly accuse the big spenders of merely throwing more money at a problem without result.
To pay for this politically driven expenditure, Congress plans to nearly double fees charged for H1-B and L visas used by foreign high-tech firms to staff their operations in the United States. The increased visa tax will fall especially hard on companies such as the Indian high-tech leaders Wipro, Infosys, and Tata.
This all has the ring of election-year populism. Congress pretends to move us closer to solving the problem of illegal immigrants entering from Latin America by raising barriers to skilled professionals coming to the United States from India and elsewhere to help us maintain our edge in competitive global technology markets.
Give Us Your Tired, Your Energetic, Your Poor, Your Rich — Pretty Much Anyone Who’s Not a Criminal or Terrorist
On Wednesday I blogged about how, for the first time in many years — since the last recession — H-1B skilled worker visas remain available despite the hard cap on their number. In other words, even foreigners respond to market incentives: when there are no jobs, there are fewer immigrants.
I’ve gotten some interesting email in response to that little notice, one of which I post below, along with my paragraph-by-paragraph responses.
Just read your blog entry on the H-1b visa. The problem is that this visa has been misused by sponsoring companies, suffering from high rates of fraud. I find it strange that Cato supports (or appears to support) a labor tool that is anything but free market. The H-1b visa is more of an indentured servant visa program than anything else – where employees must be sponsored by an employer. Since employees aren’t free to find new jobs or start their own business, it results in a captive workforce who will do whatever the employee asks, even beyond reason. They won’t bargain for higher wages, quit if mistreated, join unions, or do anything that might result in their immigration status being jeopardized.
Having myself been on H-1Bs with several employers, including Cato, I agree that the program is seriously flawed, in the ways this correpondent describes and in others. Ideally, people would be able to apply for a work permit — their application gaining more “points,” say, for language, youth, skills, the needs of the economy, or whatever other criteria the political process determines are important — and then not be tied to an employer and have an opportunity to receive permanent residence and eventual naturalization if they pay their taxes, stay out of jail, etc. Or, indeed, we could admit all people who want to come here (after screening for security, criminal, and health concerns), and give them the same opportunity. But until we get to that more perfect world, I see no conflict in advocating for a repeal of the H-1B cap or pointing out how this recession shows that immigrants come for jobs, not to leech off our welfare state (if that’s the concern, then wall off the welfare state, not the country) or commit crimes.
One thing not correct in your blog is that H-1b visa holders cannot get a green-card. They can, unfortunately most of the workers are from India so it is difficult for those workers to get the green-card because of how, numerically, green-cards are issued. The H-1b visa is a “dual intent” visa meaning there is a path to permanent residence and after 6 years on the visa holders can extend 1 year until their green-card is processed. Indian workers call it the “green carrot” and relate it to the picture of where the mule driver holds a carrot on a stick in front of the mule to keep him moving. No matter how hard the mule tries, the carrot gets no closer.
The H-1B’s “dual intent” provision is categorically not a path to a green card. All it does is, as the correspondent points out, allow the worker to stay in the country during the green card application process. That process, however, and the substantive requirements for obtaining a green card, is no different for H-1B holders than it is for anyone else. Indeed, spending five or six years on an H-1B with one employer can be a detriment, inasmuch as that employer’s sponsorship application cannot take into account the skills gained during that time of employment. And yes, the nationality-based restrictions are also obnoxious.
Immigrants Respond to Economic Incentives
As I blogged here, I got my green card in April — and am now counting down the days till I can naturalize (five years from the green card, though you can apply three months before that and processing takes a year or so). Because of my various travails over the years that led to that fortunate day this spring, I’ve learned quite a bit about immigration, both as a matter of policy and as a matter of law. Indeed, both before joining Cato and ever since, it’s been an area in which I’ve been writing and speaking — and I appreciate very much the synergy this work has had with my colleagues in the trade and immigration shop.
One oped I had in National Review Online dealt with H-1Bs, the temporary visas for highly skilled workers to work in the United States. One of the problems with H-1Bs is that they provide no path to a green card (meaning permanent residence) or citizenship — so just as hard-working, tax-paying professionals gain expertise in a particular American company or industry, just as they grow roots in an American community, they have to leave. Nevertheless, there have long been more H-1B applicants than available visas. The last few years, the annual 65,000 quota has been oversubscribed on the very first day of eligibility for each fiscal year!
Well, not any more. As this recent article points out, the recession has impacted our immigration system as well: “A coveted visa program that feeds skilled workers to top-tier U.S. technology companies and universities [the H-1B program] is on track to leave thousands of spots unfilled for the first time since 2003, a sign of how the weak economy has eroded employment even among highly trained professionals.”
This is just another indication that the free movement of goods, money, and people, will regulate even such perceived social ills as “foreigners taking American jobs.” There’s simply no need for “U.S. citizen only” provisions in (so-called) stimulus bills, or (further) immigration restrictions during bad economic times.
In other words, even foreigners respond to market incentives.
For more on Cato’s work on immigration policy, go here.
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