Archive for November 2007

November 15th, 2007

Driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants

Lara S. Pierce

Elliot Spitzer was criticized for a plan to issue limited versions of driver’s licenses to undocumented aliens in New York.

The presumption underlying those objections is that the proposed licenses are tantamount to legalization. But that ignores the reality that issuing a driver’s license to an undocumented alien does not make him legal, nor protect him from deportation, or grant him work authorization.

Instead, driver’s licenses will ensure that the recipients will have to pass a driving test, thus making the roads safer for the rest of us. They will also make it more likely that those drivers have insurance, protecting others from financial loss in case of accidents.

What driver’s licenses will also do is disclose where an alien resides so we can arrest him in case of a crime, or locate them when we need them as witnesses. Further, it will enable us to know more about who and how many live among us so we can better track others who pose the real danger; i.e. those who have more in mind than just providing for their families through hard work. Will this encourage others to come here illegally? Those who risk their lives to come here to support their families will use fake licenses anyway or drive without one. So, if they should be deported, having a license will not stop our government from doing so, and not having one does not appear to prevent them from coming here in the first place. So, we may as well focus on the safety aspects of this issue.

This is not a call for open borders. Illegal entry is a problem needing a solution by our federal government through programs that streamline our society’s need for those low skill workers from abroad, while protecting our own workforce. But, until a reasonable and workable solution is enacted by Congress, let’s not scream foul whenever someone comes up with a temporary solution to a small part of the problem; in this case: undocumented aliens by the millions driving without proper testing or insurance, and endangering the rest of us.

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November 8th, 2007

Is the H-1b program useful?

Lara S. Pierce

Many who oppose the H-1B visa category for high-skilled professionals argue that we should focus instead on our own students, improving math and science, and avoid having foreigners compete with the U.S. work force.

However, I believe that even as we make our math and science programs the best in the world, and even as our own work force should be our first focus, the H-1B program is still worth keeping and expanding. Under the H-1B visas, U.S. employers usually employ young foreign professionals who mostly are in the upper percentile of their home country ability-wise. It is simply not cost effective to bring a mediocre professional here with costs running in the thousands in legal and government filing fees, and in relocation expenses. Because of that, the program is cost effective only when employers bring the brightest, or hire foreign graduates of our schools who are usually the top from their own country.While there may be some abuse, and some H-1bs might be here for their cheap labor and not for their talent, the remedy is to punish the abusers, and not to destroy a good program.

Therefore, even if America’s study standards improve and even if we spend more effort at training our professionals (which we should), the question remains whether we, as a nation, should continue to welcome the best and the brightest of mostly young professionals of the world to work and live among us. I think that the answer should be yes.

Those high-skilled professionals, even if a few of them may compete with American for jobs, are at the same time adding to the consumer base since they have to live and spend money here. Many of them will end up being inventors, enhancers and creators of businesses who would, in turn, employ numerous Americans. E-bay, Yahoo, Cisco, Google, and numerous other high tech companies are all examples of extremely successful businesses started by immigrants or their descendants that ultimately created far more jobs for Americans than the ones supposedly initially taken by them.

In addition, if we don’t allow this type of talent to enter the U.S., these individuals will go elsewhere and we will lose the tax base they would otherwise provide. Many US companies are starting overseas offices to avoid the hassle of the H-1B visa. Such outsourcing has a negative effect on the United States in comparison to bringing the workers here and making him part of our consumer and tax payment base.

Considering that we accept almost a million of family based immigrants and many more undocumented aliens every year without labor competition analysis, we need to reassess the many obstacles placed to the much fewer numbers (and much more talented) H-1bs. Those young bright H-1b professionals, and their children in the future, will enrich us, be good for us and for our future generations as well as for our own work force and its competitiveness in the global economy.

Posted in Skilled immigrants | Leave a comment