How America’s talent wars are reshaping business

2022/02/05 Leave a comment

In Canada, by contrast, immigration is relied upon to meet labour force requirements. One of the consequences, unforeseen or not, was reduced pressure to improve productivity and innovation:

Dcl logistics, like so many American firms, had a problem last year. Its business, fulfilling orders of goods sold online, faced surging demand. But competition for warehouse workers was fierce, wages were rising and staff turnover was high. So dcl made two changes. It bought robots to pick items off shelves and place them in boxes. And it reduced its reliance on part-time workers by hiring more full-time staff. “What we save in having temp employees, we lose in productivity,” explains Dave Tu, dcl’s president. Full-time payroll has doubled in the past year, to 280.Listen to this story

As American companies enter another year of uncertainty, the workforce has become bosses’ principal concern. Chief executives cite worker shortages as the greatest threat to their businesses in 2022, according to a survey by the Conference Board, a research organisation. On January 28th the Labour Department reported that firms had spent 4% more on wages and benefits in the fourth quarter, year on year, a rise not seen in 20 years. Paycheques of everyone from McDonald’s burger-flippers to Citi group bankers are growing fatter. This goes some way to explaining why profit margins in the s&p 500 index of large companies, which have defied gravity in the pandemic, are starting to decline. On February 2nd Meta spooked investors by reporting a dip in profits, due in part to a rise in employee-related costs as it moves from Facebook and its sister social networks into the virtual-reality metaverse.

At the same time, firms of all sizes and sectors are testing new ways to recruit, train and deploy staff. Some of these strategies will be temporary. Others may reshape American business.

The current jobs market looks extra ordinary by historical standards. December saw 10.9m job openings, up by more than 60% from December 2019. Just six workers were available for every ten open jobs (see chart 1). Predictably, many seem comfortable abandoning old positions to seek better ones. This is evident among those who clean bedsheets and stock shelves, as well as those building spreadsheets and selling stocks. In November 4.5m workers quit their jobs, a record. Even if rising wages and an ebbing pandemic lure some of them back to work, the fight for staff may endure.

For decades American firms slurped from a deepening pool of labour, as more women entered the workforce and globalisation greatly expanded the ranks of potential hires. That expansion has now mostly run its course, says Andrew Schwedel of Bain, a consultancy. Simultaneously, other trends have conspired to make the labour pool shallower than it might have been. Men continue to slump out of the job market: the share of men aged 25 to 54 either working or looking for work was 88% at the end of last year, down from 97% in the 1950s. Immigration, which plunged during Donald Trump’s nativist presidency, has sunk further, to less than a quarter of the level in 2016. And covid-19 may have prompted more than 2.4m baby boomers into early retirement, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.

These trends will not reverse quickly. Boomers won’t sprint back to work en masse. With Republicans hostile to outsiders and Democrats squabbling over visas for skilled ones, a surge in immigration looks unlikely. Some men have returned to the workforce since the depths of the covid recession in 2020, but the male participation rate has plateaued below pre-pandemic levels. A tight labour market may persist.

But base pay is rising, too. Bank of America says it will raise its minimum wage to $25 by 2025. In September Walmart, America’s largest private employer, set its minimum wage at $12 an hour, below many states’ requirement of $13-14 but well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Amazon has lifted average wages in its warehouses to $18. The average hourly wage for production and nonsupervisory employees in December was 5.8% above the level a year earlier; compared with a 4.7% jump for all private-sector workers. Firms face pressure to lift them higher still. High inflation ensured that only workers in leisure and hospitality saw a real increase in hourly pay last year (see chart 2).

Raising compensation may not, on its own, be sufficient for companies to overcome the labour squeeze, however. This is where the other strategies come in, starting with changes to recruitment. To deal with the fact that, for some types of job, there simply are not enough qualified candidates to fill vacancies, many businesses are loosening hiring criteria previously deemed a prerequisite.

The share of job postings that list “no experience required” more than doubled from January 2020 to September 2021, reckons Burning Glass, an analytics firm. Easing rigid preconditions may be sensible, even without a labour shortage. A four-year degree, argues Joseph Fuller of Harvard Business School, is an unreliable guarantor of a worker’s worth. The Business Roundtable and the us Chamber of Commerce, two business groups, have urged companies to ease requirements that job applicants have a four-year university degree, advising them to value workers’ skills instead.

Another way to deal with a shortage of qualified staff is for firms to impart the qualifications themselves. In September, the most recent month for which Burning Glass has data, the share of job postings that offer training was more than 30% higher than in January 2020. New providers of training are proliferating, from university-run “bootcamps” to short-term programmes by specialists such as General Assembly and big employers themselves. Employers in Buffalo have hired General Assembly to run data-training schemes for local workers who are broadly able but who lack specific tech skills. Google, a technology giant, says it will consider workers who earn its online certificate in data analytics, for example, to be equivalent to a worker with a four-year degree.

Besides revamping recruitment and training, companies are modifying how their workers work. Some positions are objectively bad, with low pay, unpredictable scheduling and little opportunity for growth. Zeynep Ton of the mit Sloan School of Management contends that making low-wage jobs more appealing improves retention and productivity, which supports profits in the long term. As interesting as Walmart’s pay increases, she argues, are the retail behemoth’s management changes. Last year it said that two-thirds of the more than 565,000 hourly workers in its stores would work full time, up from about half in 2016. They would have predictable schedules week to week and more structured mentorship. Other companies may take note. Many of the complaints raised by labour organisers at Starbucks and Amazon have as much to do with safety and stress on the job as they do wages or benefits.

Companies that cannot find enough workers are trying to do with fewer of them. Sometimes that means trimming services. Many hotel chains, including Hilton, have made daily housekeeping optional. “We’ve been very thoughtful and cautious about what positions we fill,” Darren Woods, boss of ExxonMobil, told the oil giant’s investors on February 1st.

Increasingly, this also involves investments in automation. Orders of robots last year surpassed the pre-pandemic high in both volume and value, according to the Association for Advancing Automation. ups, a shipping firm, is boosting productivity with more automated bagging and labelling; new electronic tags will eliminate millions of manual scans each day.

New business models are pushing things along. Consider McEntire Produce in Columbia, South Carolina. Each year more than 45,000 tonnes of sliced lettuce, tomatoes and onions move through its factory. Workers pack them in bags, place bags in boxes and stack boxes on pallets destined for fast-food restaurants. McEntire has raised wages, but staff turnover remains high. Even as worker costs have climbed, the upfront expense of automation has sunk. So the firm plans to install new robots to box and stack. It will lease these from a new company called Formic, which offers robots at an hourly rate that is less than half the cost of a McEntire worker doing the same job. By 2025 McEntire wants to automate 60% of its volume, with robots handling the back-breaking work and workers performing tasks that require more skill. One new position, introduced in the past year, looks permanent: a manager whose sole job is to listen to and support staff so they do not quit. 

Both workers and employers are adapting. For the most part, they are doing so outside the construct of collective bargaining. Despite a flurry of activity—Starbucks baristas in Buffalo and Amazon workers in Alabama will hold union votes in February—unions remain weak. Last year 10.3% of American workers were unionised, matching the record low of 2019. Within the private sector, the unionisation rate is just 6.1%. Strikes and pickets will be a headache for some bosses. But it is quits that could cause them sleepless nights.

Pay as they go

Companies’ most straightforward tactic to deal with worker shortages is to raise pay. If firms are to part with cash, they prefer the inducements to be one-off rather than recurring and sticky, as with higher wages. That explains a proliferation of fat bonuses. Before the Christmas rush Amazon began offering workers a $3,000 sign-on sweetener. Compensation for lawyers at America’s top 50 firms rose by 16.5% last year, in part thanks to bonuses, according to a survey by Citigroup and Hildebrandt, a consultancy. In January Bank of America said it would give staff $1bn in restricted stock, which vests over time.

Source: How America’s talent wars are reshaping business

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Immigration Critics Wrong: Fewer Visas Did Not Help U.S. Workers

2022/02/04 Leave a comment

Useful analysis of this natural experiment given US government policies remained largely unchanged:

The number of new foreign-born workers in the United States declined because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but U.S. workers were not better off, according to new research. That refutes a long-held anti-immigration argument and addresses a concern raised by some labor unions. Worker shortages, partly a result of restrictive immigration policies and made worse by the pandemic, have contributed to empty shelves in supermarkets, shorter hours in restaurants and elsewhere, and an inability for many companies to fill jobs and grow in the United States.

The research focused on H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign nationals, H-2B visas for nonagricultural seasonal workers, and J-1 visas for summer work travel. The focus is timely because some labor unions have argued against the Biden administration increasing by 20,000 the number of H-2B visas, even though such visas help reduce illegal entry and prevent at least some of the dangerous border crossings that cause hundreds of deaths annually, such as the recent drowning of a 7-year-old girl from Venezuela in the Rio Grande.

“The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a sharp drop in international migration to the United States, but there is no evidence the entry of fewer foreign workers on temporary visas improved outcomes for U.S. workers,” concluded Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida and a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, in a new report for the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

“The research examined labor markets where more temporary foreign workers were employed prior to the pandemic and found the drop in H-2B program admissions did not boost labor market opportunities for U.S. workers but rather, if anything, worsened them,” writes Zavodny. “The results also do not indicate gains for similar U.S. workers in labor markets that had relied more on the H-1B and J-1 visa programs. There is no evidence of improved labor market opportunities for U.S. workers in the leisure and hospitality sector during the summer months as a result of the virtual shutdown of the J-1 Summer Work Travel program.

“There is also no evidence of faster employment growth or lower unemployment rates for college graduate U.S. natives as a result of decreased admissions via the H-1B program. Instead, labor markets that had been more reliant on temporary foreign workers via the H-1B program before the pandemic appeared to have had more unfilled jobs during the pandemic. The large drop in new temporary foreign workers via the H-1B program thus does not appear to have led to better labor market outcomes for the U.S. natives who might compete with those workers for jobs.”

Among the findings of the report are new estimates that show the number of working-age migrants from abroad has declined:

·       “The U.S. received some 630,000 fewer working-age international migrants between mid-March 2020 and mid-March 2021 than at its peak during the corresponding period in 2014-2015, a drop of over 75% in inflows.

·       “Even if new arrivals in 2019-2021 had maintained just the average annual pace over 2010-2019, the U.S. would have received almost 600,000 more working-age international migrants than it actually did during that two-year period.

·       “The decrease in working-age international migrants was similar for migrants who had at least a bachelor’s degree and those who had at most a high school diploma, both down 75% in 2020-2021 from their peak year-to-year inflow during the previous decade.

·       “The number of J-1 exchange visitor visas issued plummeted from about 350,000 per fiscal year to about 100,000 in FY 2020 and a similar level in fiscal year (FY) 2021. The drop in the Summer Work Travel (SWT) program within that visa category was even more precipitous, falling from over 100,000 annually to under 5,000 in FY 2020.

·       “The number of H-1B specialty occupations visas issued fell from almost 190,000 in FY 2019 to about 125,000 in FY 2020 and under 62,000 in FY 2021.

·       “The number of H-2B non-agricultural worker visas issued fell by almost half in FY 2020 before returning to near its pre-pandemic level in FY 2021.”

Zavodny notes it is tempting to argue that some of the increase in labor market opportunities for workers is due to reduced international migration. “The analysis here gives little reason to believe any gains for U.S. workers are linked to lower admission of temporary foreign workers,” writes Zavodny. “The ongoing shortages of workers in many labor markets reflect U.S. employers’ need for additional workers from both domestic sources and abroad. The research also examines data on job postings and the results point to jobs, particularly highly skilled jobs, going unfilled when temporary foreign workers were unable to enter the country. The decrease in new temporary foreign workers in the U.S. as a result of the pandemic thus does not appear to have led to better labor market outcomes for U.S. natives but rather to jobs left unfilled.”

Immigration critics have insisted that fewer legal visas would translate into gains for U.S. workers. The Covid-19 pandemic created a natural experiment to test that proposition and found it to be untrue. The results show a simplistic, zero-sum argument that restricting the size of the labor force benefits U.S. workers is incorrect. Such an argument fails to take into account many factors, including the role played by capital and entrepreneurs in a market economy. Instead, imposing visa restrictions and having fewer available workers reduce economic growth and make it more difficult for businesses to expand and deliver products and services to Americans.

Source: Immigration Critics Wrong: Fewer Visas Did Not Help U.S. Workers

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House Adds ‘Game-Changing’ Visas For Immigrant Startups And Ph.D.s

2022/01/28 Leave a comment

Significant if it passes and a measure that will reduce some of the advantages for Canadian immigration that were generated by the Trump administration’s restrictive policies:

The House Rules Committee has added a significant element missing from a Senate innovation bill—visas for people who will produce innovations. House Democrats addressed that oversight by adding two potentially game-changing measures for immigrant entrepreneurs and immigrants with Ph.D.s in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields. If these measures become law, their impact could be far-reaching. (See sections 80301 to 80305 in the bill.)

Immigrant Startup Visa: The lack of a startup visa costs America talent, according to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. In its final report, the commission members said the absence of a startup visa places the United States at a disadvantage compared to other nations like Canada in retaining and attracting foreign-born entrepreneurs. Many innovations are realized through entrepreneurship, and, according to a 2018 National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) analysis, more than half of the billion-dollar startups in the United States had at least one immigrant founder. The list included some of America’s most innovative companies, such as SpaceX, Stripe and Moderna.

On January 25, 2022, the House Rules Committee added Rep. Zoe Lofgren’s (D-CA) LIKE Act to the nearly 3,000-page America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521). The bill creates a temporary visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs who qualify and, according to a summary, “Allows the founder to apply for and receive lawful permanent residence if the start-up entity meets certain additional benchmarks.”

An individual qualifies for a new temporary W visa for an initial three years if:

“(1) the alien possesses an ownership interest of not less than 10% in a start-up entity;

“(2) the alien will play a central and active role in the management or operations of the start-up entity;

“(3) the alien possesses the knowledge, skills, or experience to substantially assist the start-up entity with the growth and success of its business; and

“(4) during the 18-month period preceding the filing of the petition, the start-up entity received at least $250,000 in qualifying investments from one or more qualified investors; or at least $100,000 in qualifying government awards or grants.”

The bill allows for an extension of the W (temporary) status for an additional three years if the individual possesses at least a 5% ownership stake, will continue to play a “central and active role” in management or operations, has received at least $500,000 in “additional qualifying investments,” created “at least 5 qualified jobs” or “generated not less than $500,000 in annual revenue in the United States and averaged 20% in annual revenue growth.”

An entrepreneur in W status may adjust status to lawful permanent residence without being placed in a green card backlog (i.e., they are exempt from the numerical limit) if the individual has maintained W status, ownership interest in the startup and an active and central role in the company, and the startup has “created at least 10 qualified jobs and . . . has received not less than $1.25 million in qualifying investments . . . or generated not less than $1 million in annual revenue in the U.S. in the two-year period preceding the filing of the petition.”

The startup visa’s impact could be significant. The measure could create approximately 1 to 3 million jobs over a decade, depending on factors that include how government agencies administer the provision, according to an NFAP estimate of an earlier Lofgren startup visa bill.

“The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) is excited to see the America COMPETES Act include a startup visa,” said Jeff Farrah of NVCA. “Immigrant entrepreneurs have created some of the most iconic American companies. But our immigration laws make it too hard for foreign-born entrepreneurs to launch new, high-growth companies in the U.S. A startup visa would provide a dedicated visa category that will allow the world’s best entrepreneurs to create the next generation of great companies that will ensure the United States remains the global leader in technology and innovation.” (See a startup visa coalition letter here.)

A Green Card Exemption For Ph.D.s: Another significant provision added to the House bill would exempt from annual green card limits individuals with Ph.D.s in STEM fields. That would allow U.S. employers to gain a significant competitive edge by offering the chance at permanent residence to outstanding researchers from around the world, including those early in their careers and engaging in cutting-edge work.

Under the bill, individuals can gain permanent residence without being placed in a green card backlog (or be subject to per-country limits) if they “have earned a doctoral degree in a program of study involving science, technology, engineering, or mathematics—from a qualified United States research institution; or from a foreign institution if such degree is the equivalent to a degree issued by a qualified United States research institution; and are seeking admission to engage in work in the United States in a field related to such degree.”

Analyzing a similar provision, an estimated 10,000 people a year could benefit from a measure limited to Ph.D.s in STEM fields from U.S. universities. However, since this new provision also allows for Ph.D.s from foreign universities, the annual number of potential beneficiaries could be higher. Moreover, the bill uses a broader definition of STEM.

The bill states, “The term ‘program of study involving science, technology, engineering, or mathematics’ means a field included in the Department of Education’s Classification of Instructional Programs taxonomy within the summary groups of agricultural sciences, natural resources and conservation, computer and information sciences and support services, engineering, biological and biomedical sciences, mathematics and statistics, military technologies, physical sciences, or medical residency and fellowship programs, or the summary group subsets of accounting and related services and taxation.”

The broader definition of STEM will carry several benefits. “The bill also expands the definition of STEM in sensible directions that include highly skilled and productive individuals in important industries,” noted Alex Nowrastesh of the Cato Institute. Attorney Greg Siskind said, “Including physicians who do residency and fellowships in the U.S. also has the added benefit of dramatically helping health care in the U.S. since MDs are one of the most backlogged occupations for green cards.”

An indirect benefit of the provision will be to help individuals waiting many years in employment-based green card backlogs even if they do not have a Ph.D. That is because individuals with Ph.D.s who previously would have used a green card number would now be exempt from the numerical limits.

“It is increasingly important that the U.S. be able to recruit foreign-trained Ph.D.s,” said Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy. “Not only do they link us to research being done abroad, but they are an increasing proportion of the total doctorate-level STEM talent in the world. It is not just China that has increased Ph.D. production, but many European and other developed countries as well.”

Postdoctoral researchers work at U.S. universities after completing their Ph.D.s and play a significant role in research in the United States. Approximately 56% of postdocs at U.S. universities are on temporary visas, with many in biological sciences, medical sciences and engineering. A large number of PhD.s with foreign degrees assist in research and development. The new measure would allow many more an opportunity to stay and contribute in the United States.

A great example of someone who could have benefited from a special green card provision for Ph.D.s is Katalin Karikó. She is credited with producing the underlying research breakthrough that made messenger RNA possible for vaccine use. That discovery likely already has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Karikó earned her Ph.D. in Hungary and toiled for years in the United States, first as a postdoctoral researcher, before her work became recognized as life-saving.

The House is expected to vote on the bill as soon as next week. The legislation, including the new immigration provisions, would need to be reconciled with (and pass) the Senate and signed by the president to become law.

Helping America and its companies better compete for talent through startup visas and a clear path to U.S. permanent residence for the world’s top researchers might help a bill on innovation live up to its name.

Source: House Adds ‘Game-Changing’ Visas For Immigrant Startups And Ph.D.s

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Semotiuk: Foreign Investors Need Help From America’s EB-5 Immigrant Program

2022/01/27 Leave a comment

Funny op-ed that reads more as Semotiuk’s brief for a client than broader policy arguments. And not convinced of the overall economic benefits claimed for the program but understand the frustration of  applicants caught by operational changes during the pandemic:

Marcos Bertola is a U.S. EB-5 Regional Center foreign immigrant investor whose green card is in limbo because the Regional Center program shut down while his application was in process. He is one of over 30,000 such committed investors whose I-526 immigration petitions are stuck. At least $15 billion in capital investment and almost 500,000 American jobs are caught up in this logjam according to IIUSA, Invest in the USA.

Better Understanding Needed

“I believe the lack of sympathy from Congress towards what investors are going through with the lapse of the Regional Center program is due at large to people not realizing who they are,” said Bertola. He added, “Investors are seen as millionaires who can afford to wait another year so that the delay won´t affect their lives. But in our case, and that of many EB-5 investors we know of, we are just middle-class families investing our savings in the American economy to give a better education for our children and because we believe in the excellence of the American institutions to such a degree that we want to be part of it.”

Bertola describes how the process started for his family, “The decision to immigrate to the US started when my daughter was finishing high school and decided to become a nurse. Researching on how she could study in the US we learned that EB-5 seemed an opportunity for us to be with her as a family. My wife who is a researcher graduated with a Master´s Degree at one of the most prestigious universities in Latin America was thrilled with the idea of being able become a doctor in the US.”

Bertola filed his EB-5 investor petition in 2016, when adjudication times were expected to be around 14 months. It took three years for it to be approved, yet he was glad and expected things to run faster after that. The next step in their immigration journey was to get approval from the National Visa Center to get their immigrant interviews at the U.S. Consulate abroad. He and his wife even bought a house in the US in 2019 in Orlando, Florida expecting everything would work out. That house has been empty ever since, creating a financial burden of paying for two households, with property taxes, insurance, HOA, etc., in addition to their expenses overseas.

Consulates Closing Didn’t Help

Bertola indicates, “Our documents were filed at the National Visa Center on March 2020, but due to the pandemic, Consulates worldwide closed that month. When they resumed immigration interviews one year later, there was a 4-tier priority to determine which immigration petitions should be interviewed first and EB5 cases were last on the list.”

The Bertola oddessy continued, “Our interview was finally scheduled, with the assistance of a Florida Senator´s office, for July 30th, 2021 after the sunset of the Regional Center Program. A week after the interview, we got an email from the Consulate saying that everything was good on our end, and they were waiting for the reboot of the program to issue our visas. We were in the incredible situation of having all steps of our petition approved, including the Consulate interview, but unable to get our visas due to the lapse. Our passports are still with the Consulate since then.”

Psychological Toll

This wait has also put an immense psychological burden on his children. “My daughter who was on her 3rd year as a nursing student has just decided she can no longer wait to go. My wife could be graduated in the biomedical field and working in healthcare in the U.S. by now if not for this reauthorization lapse. Our lives have been put on hold for many years in the expectation of moving to the U.S., but every time a deadline seems close, a disappointment comes and uncertainty grows,” Bertola says. He adds, “Those years of professional development and achievements are being robbed from us, especially my children who are starting their careers. Our personal belongings are in a warehouse for more than a year, ready to be shipped, and we spend our time searching the internet for news about the reauthorization which never comes.”

No Sense Of Urgency

The way Bertola sees it, “There is no sense of urgency in Congress towards the reauthorization, and investors are being used as hostages in the negotiations.” A grandfathering bill, such as FIFPA (Foreign Investors Fairness Protection Act) could easily solve this problem, but according to Bertola it lacks political awareness. “It´s a damaging situation for the reputation of the program and could bring as consequence the loss of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs if the investors start to sue to get their investment back. Nobody wins, but we investors are the weakest link,” says Bertola.

“Right now, our best hope is to have our voices and personal stories heard. I have a dream of moving to America as a legal immigrant and to become an American citizen in the future, but that dream is being denied for thousands of investors who did nothing wrong but were caught in the political turmoil of these past years,” concludes Bertola.

Grandfathering Legislation Needed

Dealing with this problem, Kurt Reuss a securities broker and founder of EB5 Marketplace, recently wrote, “Existing EB-5 regional center investors are stuck in limbo right now as their applications remain frozen due to the lapse of the Regional Center Program. The U.S. government has an obligation to live up to its end of the bargain: adjudication of the petitions of investors who invested and filed in good faith. To do otherwise, would be just plain wrong and would negatively impact our immigration reputation.”

According to Reuss, who advocates an end to the Regional Center program in favor of the EB-5 direct investment option, “Simple grandfathering legislation can protect those investors who filed their petition when the program was authorized. Take care of past regional center investors who acted in good faith and end the program with that.”

Whether or not the Regional Center program is renewed, it is clear that it is time to help the foreign investors caught in the fray.

Source: Foreign Investors Need Help From America’s EB-5 Immigrant Program

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Unlike Trump, Biden Plan Welcomes Immigrant Scientists And Engineers

2022/01/24 Leave a comment

Of note given likely impact on relative attractiveness of Canada compared to USA but degree not known:

Although Donald Trump said he favored “merit-based” immigration, his policy team never seemed to find high-skilled foreign nationals it wanted to let work in the United States. In contrast, the Biden administration has proposed new policies that take the opposite approach.

Announced January 21, 2022, the new Biden policies can be divided into four general areas. Each holds the potential for making America more welcoming for talented foreign-born individuals at a time when human capital and innovation have never been more valuable to a nation.

Improved National Interest Waivers For Employment-Based Immigrants: As reported earlier in an article previewing immigration in 2022, new guidance for “National Interest Waivers” in the employment-based second preference could be a significant improvement for many immigrants. “The USCIS [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] policy update clarifies how the national interest waiver can be used for persons with advanced degrees in STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] fields and entrepreneurs, as well as the significance of letters from governmental and quasi-governmental entities,” according to a Biden administration fact sheet describing the new policies. “This update will promote efficient and effective benefit processing as USCIS reviews requests for national interest waivers.”

The new guidance could expand the use of national interest waivers for immigrant entrepreneurs and potentially for a broader range of highly skilled individuals with expertise in science, engineering and other fields. The narrow interpretation in current USCIS guidance has frustrated immigrants since using such waivers allows foreign nationals to “self-petition.” That means (per USCIS) “they do not need an employer to sponsor them.” National interest waivers can also be a relief from the Department of Labor’s lengthy labor certification process. 

(See here for the USCIS policy manual update on national interest waivers.)MORE FOR YOUNATO’s Technology Innovation Initiatives Are Moving Into High GearAI 50 2021: America’s Most Promising Artificial Intelligence CompaniesImpossible Foods’ CEO Says Going Public Is ‘Inevitable.’ So Why Have Most Of 2021’s Food Listings Spoiled?

Updating O-1A Visas: “O-1A [are for] individuals with an extraordinary ability in the sciences, education, business, or athletics (not including the arts, motion pictures or television industry),” according to USCIS. However, in the past, USCIS has adopted a narrow view of who is eligible for the visas. A Biden administration official said on background the new policy is expected to expand significantly the eligibility for O-1A visas in STEM fields. (See here for the USCIS policy manual update on O-1A visas.)

“In this update, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is clarifying how it determines eligibility for immigrants of extraordinary abilities, such as Ph.D. holders, in the science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields,” according to the fact sheet. “The new update provides examples of evidence that may satisfy the O-1A evidentiary criteria and discusses considerations that are relevant to evaluating such evidence, with a focus on the highly technical nature of STEM fields and the complexity of the evidence often submitted.”

Dan Berger of Curran, Berger & Kludt thinks the new O-1A guidance will be helpful. “O-1 visas had become more difficult to obtain,” he said in an interview. “New guidance is helpful to clarify how the statutory criteria apply to STEM fields and the modern world. Many of the criteria were written before the internet age.”

Expanding Eligibility For STEM OPT: As discussed here, the Biden administration has expanded eligibility for STEM Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows international students to gain practical experience for 12 months and an additional 24 months in a STEM field. Many international students would not come to America without OPT and the ability to work in their field, including the potential later to obtain H-1B status and an employment-based green card. 

In a Federal Register notice (January 21, 2022), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced, “The Secretary of Homeland Security is amending the DHS STEM Designated Degree Program List [for OPT] by adding 22 qualifying fields of study.” The fields include Cloud Computing, Anthrozoology, Climate Science, Mathematical Economics, Business Analytics, Data Visualization, Financial Analytics and others. (More details are available in the Federal Register notice.)

Expanded Programs For J-1 Exchange Visitors: The Biden administration has also proposed two expansions in the use of J-1 visas that may represent new routes to America for individuals in STEM fields. “The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) is announcing an ‘Early Career STEM Research Initiative,’ to facilitate non-immigrant BridgeUSA exchange visitors coming to the United States to engage in STEM research through research, training or educational exchange visitor programs with host organizations, including businesses,” according to the administration’s fact sheet. “ECA is also announcing new guidance that will facilitate additional academic training for undergraduate and graduate students in STEM fields on the J-1 visa for periods of up to 36 months.” 

Without reviewing text on the new J-1 policies, Lynden Melmed, a partner at Berry Appleman & Leiden and former chief counsel for USCIS, said the changes could be quite positive. He also views the other policy proposals favorably.

“Immigration is often about fitting square pegs into round holes, and that won’t ever change,” he said in an interview. “But over the years, the policy guidance and procedures have become so inflexible that we risk losing employees who are working in developing fields critical to national security. The guidance on O-1 visas and foreign students restores some sanity to the process.”

“Expanding the number of STEM fields is long overdue and very welcome,” he said. “DHS took a careful approach when it first issued the STEM list. Today’s announcement is key because it signals the government will try to keep up with the rapidly changing academic environment.” 

Statistics on international students help illustrate why the Biden approach aimed at attracting international students makes more sense than the Trump administration’s restrictive policies. “At U.S. universities, foreign nationals account for 82% of the full-time graduate students in petroleum engineering, 74% in electrical engineering, 72% in computer and information sciences, 71% in industrial and manufacturing engineering, 70% in statistics” and over 50% in many other fields, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis. “At many U.S. universities, the data show it would be difficult to maintain important graduate programs without international students.”

The State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services still need to improve processing, and Congress must enact many immigration reforms. Notable reforms would include increasing the number of employment-based green cards and H-1B visas and eliminating the per-country limit for employer-sponsored immigrants. 

It is easy to forget the Trump administration’s generally hostile policies toward foreign-born scientists and engineers. In 2020, Donald Trump blocked the entry to the United States of employment-based immigrants and H-1B visa holders via proclamations, and it took unfavorable court rulings on H-1B visas for USCIS finally to end four years of restrictive immigration policies against employers. Should the same policy team return to the White House in 2025, the goal on foreign talent likely won’t be to shut the barn door tighter but to dismantle the barn and close down the farm.

The Biden administration sees international education and innovation much differently from its predecessor, and the context from which these new policies have been proposed is clear. America is viewed as losing ground to China and other countries in the battle for talent. The latest proposals show the U.S. government is now attempting to join this battle and encourage talented foreign-born scientists and engineers to become part of the U.S. economy and the nation.

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2022/01/21/unlike-trump-biden-plan-welcomes-immigrant-scientists-and-engineers/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=follow&cdlcid=5e4bc7f55b099ce02faa6b40&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=follow&cdlcid=5e4bc7f55b099ce02faa6b40&sh=3a3612d955f6

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One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

2022/01/22 Leave a comment

By way of comparison, the percent of Blacks in Canada who are immigrants is 52 percent:

The demographics of America’s Black population are in the middle of a major shift, with 1 in 10 having been born outside the United States. That’s 4.6 million Americans, a figure that is projected to grow to 9.5 million by 2060, according to the findings of a Pew Research Center study published Thursday.

“When we talk about the nation’s Black population, we have to understand it is one that is changing and becoming even more diverse than it already was, and immigrants are a big part of that story and so the immigrant experience is a growing part of the experience of Black Americans today,” said Mark Lopez, Pew’s director of race and ethnicity research.

Black immigrants and their American-born children make up 21 percent of the nation’s Black population, with an increasing number of migrants coming from Africa, according to the report. Lopez said it’s a group that often is overlooked in discussions about immigration.

Source: One in 10 Black people living in the U.S. are immigrants, new study shows

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H-1B Visa Denial Rates Plunge After Trump Immigration Policies End

2022/01/14 Leave a comment

Not surprising. Will see if this reverses some of the preference of some high skilled immigrants for Canada that emerged during the Trump years:

H-1B denial rates have returned to pre-Trump levels after court decisions and a legal settlement ended the Trump administration’s restrictive policies, according to a new report. The changes started in the fourth quarter of FY 2020, while Donald Trump was still president, following a legal settlement with the business group ITServe Alliance and judges declaring the Trump administration’s policies unlawful. The lower denial rates continued through FY 2021 because the Biden administration abided by the legal settlement and did not introduce new restrictions.

“The denial rate for new H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2021 dropped to 4%, far lower than the denial rate of 24% in FY 2018, 21% in FY 2019 and 13% in FY 2020,” according to a new report from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). “The Trump administration managed to carry out what judges determined to be unlawful policies for nearly four years, and the policies imposed significant costs on employers, visa holders and the U.S. economy, likely contributing to more work and talent moving to other countries.”

H-1B petitions for “initial” employment are for new employment, normally a case for companies that counts against the H-1B annual limit. The FY 2020 denial rate would have been higher if not for the legal settlement. Court rulings also stopped U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from continuing to impose new restrictions on who qualified for an H-1B specialty occupation.

The low H-1B denial rates in FY 2021 show the Trump administration’s anti-immigration approach was an aberration. “NFAP found the denial rates in FY 2021 and FY 2015 to be similar for employers, meaning the Trump years were an aberration due to imposing restrictive policies that courts found to be unlawful,” according to the report. “For several companies, particularly those that provide information technology (IT) services or other business services to U.S. companies, the denial rate for H-1B petitions for initial employment was far lower in FY 2021 than in FY 2020.”

H-1B temporary visas typically are the only practical way for a high-skilled foreign national, including an international student, to work long-term in the United States and have an opportunity to become an employment-based immigrant and a U.S. citizen. Many founders of billion-dollar companies and individuals who created the vaccines and delivered medical care that has saved the lives of Americans during the pandemic have used H-1B visas and employment-based green cards, notes NFAP.

Among the findings in the NFAP analysis:

–     “The denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment was 2% in FY 2021, much lower than the 12% denial rate in FY 2018 and FY 2019 and the lowest level since data on H-1B denial rates became available. H-1B petitions for ‘continuing’ employment are usually extensions for existing employees at the same company or an H-1B visa holder changing to a new employer. The denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment was 7% in FY 2020 but would have been higher if not for the impact in the fourth quarter of the court decisions and the legal settlement. In recent history, the 7% denial rate was still high compared to the 3% denial rate for H-1B petitions for continuing employment each year between FY 2011 and FY 2015.

–     “Much of the increase in denials for continuing employment during the Trump administration was due to an October 2017 memo that instructed adjudicators to no longer ‘give deference to the findings of a previously approved petition.’ Many extensions of H-1B status were reviewed under a new, more restrictive standard based on policies that judges later determined to be unlawful. Employers and attorneys have credited USCIS Director Ur Jaddou and the Biden administration for rescinding the October 2017 memo.

–     Amazon had the most approved H-1B petitions for initial employment in FY 2021 with 6,182. Amazon also had the most new H-1B petitions approved in FY 2020. Infosys had the second most H-1B petitions in FY 2021 approved for initial employment (5,256), followed by TCS (3,063), Wipro (2,121) Cognizant (1,481), Google (1,453), IBM (1,402), HCL America (1,299) and Microsoft (1,240).

–     “Processing issues likely inflated the number of approved H-1B petitions for the top employers. In the USCIS data, H-1B petitions are counted in the fiscal year they are approved, not in the cap year the H-1B visa holder begins to work. NFAP determined approximately 18,000 more petitions were approved for initial employment in FY 2021 compared to FY 2020, possibly due to USCIS processing issues in FY 2020 caused by the pandemic and the higher denial rate in 2020. Another caveat to the numbers is that, according to attorneys, in FY 2019 and FY 2020 during the Trump administration, USCIS held or delayed H-1B applications for many IT services companies, which would have inflated the number of approved H-1B petitions for those companies in FY 2021.

–     “The top employers of approved H-1B petitions in FY 2021 were also among the fastest-growing employers of U.S. workers, providing evidence that companies that employ H-1B visa holders also seek out and employ U.S. workers in significant numbers. The information on the significant hiring of U.S. workers by employers of H-1B professionals helps demonstrate the fallacies of the zero-sum argument about high-skilled foreign nationals ‘taking’ American jobs, particularly since economists have found hiring high-skilled personnel complements other high-skilled jobs as well as other types of employment at a company and in the economy.

–     “At U.S. universities, only approximately 25% of the full-time graduate students in electrical engineering and computer and information sciences are U.S. students.”

Source: H-1B Visa Denial Rates Plunge After Trump Immigration Policies End

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USA: Southeast Asians are underrepresented in STEM. The label ‘Asian’ boxes them out more

2021/12/14 Leave a comment

The impact of overly broad groupings. In contrast, Canadian visible minorities have 7 groupings of Asian: Chinese, South Asian, Filipino, Southeast Asian, Korean, Japanese, West Asian (but of course, considerable differences within most of these groups):

When Kao Lee Yang received a nomination from her university for the Gilliam Fellowship by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering and math, she was thrilled. She’s spent years working toward her doctorate in Alzheimer’s research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Yang is Asian American, and more specifically is Hmong American, part of a small minority in the United States with just 327,000 people.

Though the Hmong population in the U.S. is growing, Hmong Americans are still underrepresented in STEM fields and have lower education rates and higher poverty rates overall, compared to the U.S. population at large.

For example, while 24% of all Asians in the U.S. have obtained an additional degree after college, and 13% of all Americans have, just 6% of Hmong Americans have, according to the Pew Research Center’s 2019 analysis of Census Bureau data. To add to that, a very low percentage of Hmong Americans actually go into STEM fields.

That’s why Yang said she was “blindsided” when HHMI emailed her academic adviser saying she wasn’t eligible for the fellowship because she didn’t meet their requirements for who is considered underrepresented.

Though the National Institutes of Health acknowledges that underrepresentation can be determined on a “case by case” basis, people who identify as Asian or white are not seen as underrepresentedin STEM, according to standards set by the NIH.

That means certain fellowships, grant funding and educational opportunities that are meant for underrepresented groups, such as Latino, Black, and Indigenous people, for example, are not always extended toward Asian American applicants. The opportunities are designed to elevate groups who are historically marginalized and make sure STEM workplaces are more inclusive and equitable.

So Yang, who said she has never met another Hmong scientist in her field, said it made no sense to her that she wasn’t considered underrepresented.

“I was dumbfounded,” Yang said. “I did wonder how HHMI came to that determination when I have had such a hard time finding other Hmong American scientists and scientific spaces.”

Yang isn’t the only one who’s experienced the contradictions that come with falling under the broad category of “Asian” in government data collection. Asian Americans have been calling attention to the issue for decades.

Hmong, Vietnamese, Filipino, Laotian, and Cambodian Americans all fall under the broad category of Asian, but their experiences the U.S. when it comes to things like education levels can vary greatly from other Asian groups such as Chinese, Korean, Indian and Japanese. Some South Asian groups such as Bhutanese and Burmese also face lower levels of educational attainment.

Because of the way HHMI looked at Asian Americans as one group, Yang was not considered to be underrepresented — effectively shutting her out from an opportunity that claims to be for someone exactly like her.

Why advocates say more nuanced data is important

“Is every Asian American group underrepresented in higher education? Obviously that’s not the case,” said Janelle Wong, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Maryland and a co-founder of AAPI Data.

“Indian and Chinese students are the largest groups applying to these programs. And while they do often face implicit bias on campuses, they’re not facing systemic exclusion to access to higher education,” Wong said.

Wong has been advocating for data disaggregation in the Asian American community for years.

Disaggregation would involve collecting more specific data on Asian sub-groups so that a person’s country of origin is apparent, rather than just grouping people together from the entire continent. The data would show specifically if someone was Vietnamese American, or Cambodian American, for example, rather than simply classifying them as Asian.

That kind of detail would allow policymakers, health care professionals, educators and even institutions such as the NIH to better examine the nuances of different Asian populations, because different groups have different needs, experiences and beliefs. The same argument has been made for other racial groups, too, particularly Latinos.

Wong said the issue isn’t just about collecting better data — it’s about justice and civil rights, too.

“This is both a data quality issue and a data justice issue,” she said.

She said lumping all Asian Americans together in one racial category effectively reduces the experience of millions of people — not just when it comes to assessing job or educational candidates, but also for anyone trying to understand their political beliefs, education level, incomeinequality and health outcomes as well. For example, data on the broad category of Asian Americans show that a vast majority are Democratic voters. But if the data is further broken down, it reveals that Vietnamese Americans tend to have far more conservative views and more often identify as Republican.

Rachel Sklar, a post-doctorate scholar in environmental health outcomes at the University of California San Francisco, is Filipino and says she has been denied an academic opportunity in the past because she falls under the “Asian American” category.

Sklar said Filipinos in the U.S. experience what’s called “downward intergenerational mobility.” In other words, U.S.-born Filipinos are less likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree than their foreign-born parents. So efforts to boost groups struggling to obtain higher education should apply to Filipinos, Sklar said, but instead they’re hidden in the broader data on Asian Americans and educational achievement.

“The experiences of groups like Filipinos are just erased. They’re deemed invisible,” Sklar said.

More nuanced data could also be helpful to doctors treating Asian American patients, and policy makers making decisions about targeting health resources to different communities.

Sklar points out that Filipino women have high rates of hypertension and diabetes and other risk factors that can impact childbirth.

“Yet, because they’re grouped as Asians, they’re rarely considered for the types of resources that they need for safe birthing and pregnancy,” she said.

Questions of identity, and guilt

The dichotomy of being considered a minority by some institutions, but not by others, is emotionally confusing, as well.

Brittany Boribong, who was nominated to the Gilliam Fellowship in 2018 — the same one Yang was nominated for — had almost the same experience as Yang.

Boribong is Laotian American and the daughter of refugees. She and her brother are the first in her family to go to college, and she is the first to continue her education beyond a bachelor’s degree. While she was getting her doctorate at Virginia Tech, she was nominated by her school for the fellowship.

Like Yang, the fellowship told Boribong she wasn’t eligible. For her, it brought up a wave of guilt, like she was taking up an opportunity from someone else, a feeling she experienced while participating in a different fellowship for underrepresented people in STEM.

“I’m technically Asian American,” she said, but she couldn’t help thinking, “Do I belong here? Am I taking someone else’s spot? … I always felt like I snuck my way in, that I shouldn’t have been there.”

Being told by the Gilliam Fellowship that she wasn’t eligible was embarrassing, Boribong said, and it was the first time she had been told so bluntly she wasn’t underrepresented.

“I just look around the room and it’s like, where are the other Lao scientists? If I’m not considered a minority, then where are we?”

She and her advisor had to then go through the process of making a case that Boribong is underrepresented. Eventually, they did allow her nomination through, but it pushed her away from applying to other fellowships at HHMI.

There are growing calls for changing the way we collect data

Collecting more specific data about Asian Americans is something scholars and activists have been calling on for years, and it’s been picking up traction.

In November, lawmakers in New York re-upped their legislation calling for disaggregation of data on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was presented with the same bill before he resigned from office but refused to sign it into law, citing logistical and financial issues of having to create new, uniform methods of collecting data, which is the most common opposition to data disaggregation. Others who have opposed efforts to disaggregate data have also cited privacy concerns, particularly related to immigrant communities, or said that it could divide different Asian groups.

But advocates of the law have pushed back against those concerns and are now asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to sign it into law.

“Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in New York represent 30+ different ethnicities and speak numerous languages. Failing to record & report that diversity is harmful,” State Sen. Julia Salazar, who co-sponsored the bill, tweeted.

When it comes to STEM academia in particular, the push for change has been incremental. Both Sklar and Boribong hadn’t realized how many others had gone through the same experience until Yang tweeted about her experience in October.

Elevating the conversation, though, might lead to some change. After Yang’s tweet spread on social media and after being questioned by NPR about their process of determining who is underrepresented, HHMI has updated their standards.

As of Nov. 12, the fellowship now said it recognizes “there are other ethnic populations who might be underrepresented but who are not currently designated as such by the federal government” and will “continue to consider” how they can better determine underrepresentation in STEM.

They’ve also extended the opportunity to Yang and a few others to complete their application, but Yang said she will not be moving forward with the process.

The larger problem that Sklar points out is that many other fellowships in STEM academia still take their guidance on diversity and representation from the NIH. The NIH, when asked by NPR, said they are required to take their guidance on race and ethnicity from the 1997 standards of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

But the OMB standards that same year also said the racial and ethnic groups that are outlined are a minimum base for gathering data, so agencies can go into further detail if they choose to. The Department of Health and Human Services guidance also said agencies are encouragedand can go into further detail. Plus, in 2012, a report to the NIH director outlined concerns about the lack of disaggregated data when it came to minority groups, specifically Latinos.

Sklar said if the NIH doesn’t change their process, she doesn’t expect much to change. In the meantime, she is focusing on what she can control: choosing to disaggregate the data she uses in her own scientific research.

For her, showing the vast differences in the Asian American population in her own research is proof in itself that the same should happen on a wider scale.

“The research needs to come first,” Sklar said, “And show that, ‘Wow, look at these experiences we’ve been making invisible just by glossing over and assuming a very heterogeneous group is actually homogeneous.'”

Source: Southeast Asians are underrepresented in STEM. The label ‘Asian’ boxes them out more

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U.S. Trade And Immigration Policies Toward China Have Backfired

2021/12/09 Leave a comment

Of note, impact on visa restrictions on Chinese students and researchers:

When small children start playing chess they make one common mistake—they forget the other side gets to a make a move. That analogy describes U.S. policy toward China in three areas: trade, semiconductors and immigration. In all three areas, U.S. policies described by supporters as “tough” have backfired.

Innovation and International Students: Is it a good idea to let the FBI and members of the National Security Council develop innovation policies for the U.S. economy? Whether it’s a good idea or not, that is what’s happened when it comes to students, professors and researchers from China.

On May 29, 2020, Donald Trump issued presidential proclamation 10043 (PP10043) on the “Suspension of Entry as Nonimmigrants of Certain Students and Researchers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” The proclamation led the State Department to deny and revoke many visas for Chinese graduate students and researchers

At its core, the proclamation denies a visa to someone who studied at a particular university on a proscribed list, even if no negative information exists on the individual. The proclamation sweeps up many people who show no evidence of bad intent. Picture an American young person denied a visa to study in a foreign country because he or she attended MIT and professors at MIT have received Pentagon funds or U.S. government research grants.

At least hundreds and possibly thousands of Chinese graduate students and researchers have been refused visas under the proclamation. Exact figures are unavailable because the State Department has not been forthcoming in releasing information despite many requests. Official figures would understate the proclamation’s impact because individuals who believe they will be denied visas would not even apply.

In a June 2020 interview conducted soon after the proclamation took effect, Jeffrey Gorsky, former Chief of the Legal Advisory Opinion section of the Visa Office in the State Department and an advisor to the National Foundation for American Policy, predicted the current impact. “There is already a longstanding program in place to vet potential students based on concerns over the transfer of sensitive technologies,” he said. “This proclamation will exclude persons from the United States based on past or minor associations with PRC entities even if the individuals pass the interagency clearance process. America will lose out on a valuable talent pool and the financial and scientific contributions these students make to U.S. universities and the United States.”

The policy is costly to the United States. Every 1,000 Ph.D.’s blocked in a year from U.S. universities costs an estimated $210 billion in the expected value of patents produced at universities over 10 years and nearly $1 billion in lost tuition over a decade, according to an analysisfrom the National Foundation for American Policy. That does not include other economic costs, such as the loss of highly productive scientists and engineers prevented from working in the U.S. economy or patents and innovations produced outside university settings. Approximately 75% of graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are international students, primarily from China and India.

As with trade, the Biden administration has continued the questionable policies on Chinese graduate students started by the Trump administration. A China expert on the current National Security Council staff has written favorably of the restrictions on international students from China. Immigration policy people who favor restrictions on international students, such as Trump adviser Stephen Miller, understood the proclamation would keep out many Chinese students. It’s not clear people with expertise on China understand enough about how visa policies are implemented to appreciate the significant negative impact of these policies on U.S. innovation.

Two recent reports question FBI investigations of Chinese-born professors at U.S. universities that have resulted in few successful criminal prosecutions.

“There is insufficient evidence that academic/economic espionage by Chinese nationals is a widespread problem at U.S. universities,” writes Rory Truex, an assistant professor at Princeton University, in a 2021 paper. “After 20 months of ongoing investigations in 2019 and 2020, the ‘China Initiative’—a Department of Justice (DOJ) effort—had brought formal charges at only ten U.S. universities or research institutions, and only three cases involved any evidence of espionage, theft, or transfer of intellectual property. Given that there are about 107,000 Chinese citizens in STEM [fields] at U.S. universities at the graduate level or above, current DOJ charges imply a criminality rate in this population of .0000934, less than 1/10,000.” (Formal charges are not convictions, and DOJ has dropped several cases.)

A recent investigation by the MIT Technology Review found the Department of Justice’s China Initiative investigations have devolved primarily into finding disclosure and paperwork violations. “The initiative’s focus increasingly has moved away from economic espionage and hacking cases to ‘research integrity’ issues, such as failures to fully disclose foreign affiliations on forms.”

The MIT Technology Review concluded: “Our reporting and analysis showed that the climate of fear created by the prosecutions has already pushed some talented scientists to leave the United States and made it more difficult for others to enter or stay, endangering America’s ability to attract new talent in science and technology from China and around the world.” A former U.S. attorney who helped create DOJ’s China Initiative during the Trump administration agreed with the MIT Technology Review critique.

The Thousand Talents recruitment program started by China’s government in 2008 encourages Chinese scientists overseas to return to China and, more generally, for talented Chinese-born scientists to work in China rather than the United States. It would seem current U.S. policies have backfired and support the long-term goals of the Chinese Communist Party to bring talent back to China.

Source: U.S. Trade And Immigration Policies Toward China Have Backfired

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Papademetriou: More Immigration Is Inevitable, But Overcoming Its Challenges Isn’t

2021/11/29 Leave a comment

Good overview of the issues and perspectives, but hard to see how USA can overcome the divisions and politics involved:

With the Census Bureau reporting a significant dip in total U.S. fertility rates—and a correspondingly lower population growth—in the past decade, the specter of demographic and economic “decline” seems to be preoccupying many commentators. Two groups have dominated the debate. First, prophets of doom who have legitimate concerns about increasing old-age dependency ratios (the ratio of the population sixty-five years and over to the population aged fifteen to sixty-four, multiplied by a hundred) but who are also worried about the size of the GDP—rather than the much more meaningful GDP per capita—and apparently equate population size with the ability to project global power. The second group is most pro-immigration advocates and activists who see in the data an opportunity for much larger immigration intakes. As the positions of the two groups dovetail nicely, the political argument for much more immigration appears to be irresistible.

And it may well be. Unsurprisingly, both sides have their usual blinders firmly in place and frequently rely on hyperbole. But are their arguments based on sound analyses? And are they politically viable? As is typically the case with complex matters, the deep divisions about immigration intake (approximately two-thirds of whom are family members), and particularly the manner in which certain immigrants enter (illegally and increasingly by crashing the southern border), the political viability of increasing immigration substantially appears questionable. This political reality will persist at least until we reestablish legality and order at our borders, reform our immigration system to align much better—and more clearly—with our economic needs, and reach out to include the millions of U.S. workers who are not in the labor force. Investing in the education and training of such typically “forgotten” and marginalized potential workers, most of whom are traditional and immigrant-origin minorities and women, and assisting them to find their way into the active workforce, is an imperative not only to maintaining a just society but also to the long-term economic health and stability of the nation. It is also a prerequisite to giving the government the “license” to admit more immigrants without fueling greater divisions and the intolerance that such divisions generate.

Looking at the demography/immigration nexus more closely, the most sensible policy position is that those who worry about the size of the U.S. population first and foremost, need not worry so much. It is perfectly reasonable for policymakers, however, to be thinking harder about how to address persistent lower fertility because of its longer-term effects on faster aging populations, the fact that fewer people will be contributing to retirement support systems while progressively more will be gaining access to them, and, in the out years, about “negative demographic momentum,” whereby ever smaller numbers of women in child-bearing ages have fewer children—the citizen workers that will keep the economy humming and the broader society healthy.

But while size may matter, there are many things that matter much more. The first tier items include a well-educated workforce that invests in lifelong learning and public policies that encourage them to do so; a private sector that prizes both formal and informal (tacit) skills and experience and rewards workers for continuing to invest in themselves; gradually tweaking social policies to extend working lives, and hence delay the age that formal retirement begins—so that there is less anxiety about worker shortages; and, of course, much better health care systems that create the conditions for extending people’s working and post-retirement lives.

Easy? Not really but these are the types of initiatives that are at the heart of dynamic economies, long-term competitiveness, the liquidity of our retirement system, and healthier lives for older workers and retirees. After all, if most Americans are living longer and healthier lives, working lives must also be extended.

And what about immigration policy? If it were possible to set aside, at least temporarily, the political arguments of the extremists who advocate for far more or far less immigration, there is no escaping the reality that all high-income countries will increase immigration flows in the future. And “traditional” immigration countries, such as the United States, Canada, or Australia, will probably lead the way—as they do already. The policy (and political) questions then become how many and in which legal categories.

The “how many” is devilishly complex to answer. If we are to really fix our immigration system, and the broader issues that ail our country, the answer to that question is not a single number: it is rather a “target” that responds to the needs of the economy, addresses the reasonable expectations of U.S. citizens and green card holders to reunify with their closest relatives, and is broadly consistent with our humanitarian obligations.

Among these three classic migration streams, the one that appears most straightforward is the economic/labor market one. Yet, responding to the needs of the economy is not as clear-cut as it may seem. Greater openings to skilled and highly skilled and talented immigrants is a no-brainer. And few can disagree with such policies as long as employers play by the rules (in terms of wages, working conditions, appropriate advancement opportunities, minimizing the displacement of local workers, or “preferring” foreign workers over domestic ones) and robust training, education, and job placement opportunities for all workers are in place. Yet the understandable bias toward the high-end of the skills’ continuum will not be enough to address labor market realities, which range from skills and geographic mismatches to the imperative of addressing the unmet labor needs in several areas along the continuum of skills. Among them are many middle-skills (think of the health and elderly care sectors) and sectors that have long been abandoned by domestic workers (think of labor-intensive and perishable crops agriculture, herding or the dairy sector, and personal services of many types, among others).

But even these realities are contested terrain for many—which makes the near-consensus about the importance of greater openness to such workers, melt away the closer one gets to the bottom third of the labor market, where tenure is more tenuous, wages lower, working conditions more difficult, even dangerous, and less protected—in law (the non-applicability of the Fair Labor Standards Act in agriculture) and in fact (when it comes to the enforcement of applicable labor laws)—and the power disparity between worker and employer is most pronounced. These are issues that must be addressed, as is the balance between permanent immigration and properly and fairly administered temporary work visas.

None of this is easy. But at the end of the day, the essence of successful leadership is about demonstrating both courage and wisdom and thus creating political space for doing the difficult things that must be done. If leaders are not willing to make tough choices that hew closer to the national interest and resist the loudest voices at the extremes of both parties, they should make room for those who will.

Source: More Immigration Is Inevitable, But Overcoming Its Challenges Isn’t

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