http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...228_990934.htm
Viewpoint March 2, 2009, 12:01AM EST
Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S.
New research shows that highly skilled workers are returning home for brighter career prospects and a better quality of life
By Vivek Wadhwa
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.
Earlier research by my team suggested that a crisis was brewing because of a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas. The wait time for some people ran longer than a decade. In the meantime, these workers were trapped in "immigration limbo." If they changed jobs or even took a promotion, they risked being pushed to the back of the permanent residency queue. We predicted that skilled foreign workers would increasingly get fed up and return to countries like India and China where the economies were booming.
Why should we care? Because immigrants are critical to the country's long-term economic health. Despite the fact that they constitute only 12% of the U.S. population, immigrants have started 52% of Silicon Valley's technology companies and contributed to more than 25% of our global patents. They make up 24% of the U.S. science and engineering workforce holding bachelor's degrees and 47% of science and engineering workers who have PhDs. Immigrants have co-founded firms such as Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC), eBay (EBAY), and Yahoo! (YHOO).
Who Are They? Young and Well-Educated
We tried to find hard data on how many immigrants had returned to India and China. No government authority seems to track these numbers. But human resources directors in India and China told us that what was a trickle of returnees a decade ago had become a flood. Job applications from the U.S. had increased tenfold over the last few years, they said. To get an understanding of how the returnees had fared and why they left the U.S., my team at Duke, along with AnnaLee Saxenian of the University of California at Berkeley and Richard Freeman of Harvard University, conducted a survey. Through professional networking site LinkedIn, we tracked down 1,203 Indian and Chinese immigrants who had worked or received education in the U.S. and had returned to their home countries. This research was funded by the Kauffman Foundation.
Our new paper, "America's Loss Is the World's Gain," finds that the vast majority of these returnees were relatively young. The average age was 30 for Indian returnees, and 33 for Chinese. They were highly educated, with degrees in management, technology, or science. Fifty-one percent of the Chinese held master's degrees and 41% had PhDs. Sixty-six percent of the Indians held a master's and 12.1% had PhDs. They were at very top of the educational distribution for these highly educated immigrant groups—precisely the kind of people who make the greatest contribution to the U.S. economy and to business and job growth.
Nearly a third of the Chinese returnees and a fifth of the Indians came to the U.S. on student visas. A fifth of the Chinese and nearly half of the Indians entered on temporary work visas (such as the H-1B). The strongest factor that brought them to the U.S. was professional and educational development opportunities.
What They Miss: Family and Friends
They found life in the U.S. had many drawbacks. Returnees cited language barriers, missing their family and friends at home, difficulty with cultural assimilation, and care of parents and children as key issues. About a third of the Indians and a fifth of the Chinese said that visas were a strong factor in their decision to return home, but others left for opportunity and to be close to family and friends. And it wasn't just new immigrants who were returning. In fact, 30% of respondents held permanent resident status or were U.S. citizens.
Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 79% of Indians said a strong factor in their original decision to return home was the growing demand for their skills in their home countries. Their instincts generally proved right. Significant numbers moved up the organization chart. Among Indians the percentage of respondents holding senior management positions increased from 10% in the U.S. to 44% in India, and among Chinese it increased from 9% in the U.S. to 36% in China. Eighty-seven percent of Chinese and 62% of Indians said they had better opportunities for longer-term professional growth in their home countries than in the U.S. Additionally, nearly half were considering launching businesses and said entrepreneurial opportunities were better in their home countries than in the U.S.
Friends and family played an equally strong role for 88% of Indians and 77% of Chinese. Care for aging parents was considered by 89% of Indians and 79% of Chinese to be much better in their home countries. Nearly 80% of Indians and 67% of Chinese said family values were better in their home countries.
More Options Back Home
Immigrants who have arrived at America's shores have always felt lonely and homesick. They had to make big personal sacrifices to provide their children with better opportunities than they had. But they never have had the option to return home. Now they do, and they are leaving.
It isn't all rosy back home. Indians complained of traffic and congestion, lack of infrastructure, excessive bureaucracy, and pollution. Chinese complained of pollution, reverse culture shock, inferior education for children, frustration with government bureaucracy, and the quality of health care. Returnees said they were generally making less money in absolute terms, but they also said they enjoyed a higher quality of life.
We may not need all these workers in the U.S. during the deepening recession. But we will need them to help us recover from it. Right now, they are taking their skills and ideas back to their home countries and are unlikely to return, barring an extraordinary recruitment effort and major changes to immigration policy. That hardly seems likely given the current political climate. The policy focus now seems to be on doing whatever it takes to retain existing American jobs—even if it comes at the cost of building a workforce for the future of America.
Wadhwa is senior research associate at the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and executive in residence at Duke University. He is an entrepreneur who founded two technology companies. His research can be found at www.globalizationresearch.com.
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3
After September eleven my sister could not even get a tourist passport visa for UNITED STATES despite the fact she was a university graduate in economics and had a family friend ( living in the U.S.) recommendation letter .
Family and friend are a reason for returning home but THERE IS NOT more options back home. There were 40 candidates for a passport visa for the u.s. but none received one.
Looking at the big picture, a interesting article after all.
Last edited by gabriel; 03 Mar 09, at 01:57.
I do not see the reason why tourist visas should be restricted,m even by protectionists. Is that not leading to stopping overseas folk spending their money here (read BAD ECONOMICS)?Originally Posted by gabriel
Thankfully I went ahead and had my parents get a 10-year visa in 2007
Same kind of immigration protectionism from the UK.New British norms make London a distant dream for many Indians
NEW DELHI: The recent changes to Tier 1 of UK’s points-based immigration system, which addresses highly-skilled immigrants and attracts young
Indians in a big way, are causing sleepless nights for many of those aspiring to go to the UK. The new terms—which make a master’s degree and a salary of at least 20,000 pounds necessary if the highly skilled immigrant doesn’t have a job offer in the UK—will close the doors for several skilled young Indians.
The UK government has also tightened the resident labour market test for Tier 2 skilled jobs so that employers must advertise more rigorously in the local market before they can bring in a worker from outside Europe.
The migration advisory committee has, meanwhile, been asked to review whether there is an economic case for restricting Tier 2 (skilled workers) to occupations where there is a shortage. While this could lead to further tightening of the Tier 2 category, the good news is that Indian companies who send their staff to UK through intra-company transfers under Tier 2 will not be impacted either by the new rules or by the review. “The points-based system is a tool to import skills into the UK and because it is flexible, as soon as the domestic economy improves and there are skills shortages again, Tier 1 and Tier 2 will be relaxed,” said Chris Dix, regional director, South Asia and Gulf of the UK Border Agency at the British High Commission in New Delhi.
He added that the Indian students who have received higher educational degrees in the UK and are entitled to Tier 1 visas for two years, will not be hit by the new strictures. “There has been a rise in the number of students visas that we have issued in India, even in the first two months of 2009, and over the year we expect at least a 30% hike in student visa numbers over the last year,” he said.
Meanwhile, UK MP and chairman of the home affairs committee Keith Vaz, felt that the British government needs to make greater efforts to strike a balance between maximising employment for British workers and protectionism. “I urge the Home Office to ensure that these measures do in reality ensure fair and appropriate immigration, and are not simply political rhetoric. In particular, it is vital that application of a minimum salary scale does not disproportionately penalise migrants from countries where average salaries are lower than those in the UK. Britain’s economic success over the last 30 years has been built by the work of economic migrants from the Indian sub-continent,” he told ET .
Indian skilled workers in the UK, spearheaded by the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) forum, are in the process of challenging the UK government over the new Tier 1 rules. Immigration lawyers in the UK, too, are concerned over the new rules.
“The plan to raise the qualification requirement to master’s instead of a bachelor’s degree creates an artificial barrier in attracting skilled staff. The other aspect of change is raising the earnings, and that too, could have a big impact on professionals coming to the UK from India,” said Maria Fernandes, an immigration lawyer based in London.
What strikes me as odd about UK in particular is that though the government seem to be unwilling to allow highly skilled workers to come in/ work legally, they do not seem to be doing anything to stop the illegal entry of radical elements (which UK has aplenty) and even bends backwards to suit the cultural leanings of these radical elements
Maybe because some people forget to return home, when they're visa expires.
Thanks Shek for sharing this interesting article.
Perhaps for the bright students, the US is still a magnet for good university education and research. Many do stay on for work experience. But after a few more years, these talents are globally mobile and do follow opportunities and quality of family life.
So if the US does not offer anymore good opportunities and quality of family life to them, they'd tend to leave.
Last edited by Merlin; 04 Mar 09, at 01:46.
A. That's difficult to pull off for long, since these visitors have. their fingerprints and other details on file. How would USCIS know? By not seeing the I-94 copy of the departing visitor after the I-94 end date (which is the date by which the visitor must leave)
B. Most visitors are granted visa only when they can show some attachment to their home country. This would include having a job or some kind of occupation, as well as property and friends/ family ties.
C. Most visitors have to ahve a letter of welcome from some close family member. The USCIS can investigate ths family member if they feel the visitors have overstayed their welcome
That is the theory , yes ,but are you sure it works ?
Published: July 31, 2008
The number of illegal immigrants in the country has dropped by as much as 1.3 million in the past year, an 11 percent decline since a historic peak last August, an immigration research group in Washington said in a report released Wednesday.
The report, by Steven A. Camarota and Karen Jensenius of the Center for Immigration Studies, found “strong indications” that stepped-up enforcement by immigration authorities had played a major role in the decline.
The report, which is based on monthly census surveys as recent as May, added to a growing body of studies indicating that the population of illegal immigrants in the United States is dropping significantly.
The study’s methods and conclusions were questioned by other demographers and economists, who said the decline might be less than the center reported and was more likely the result of the weak economy, especially in low-wage construction and manufacturing where illegal immigrants are generally employed.
“The decline can easily be explained by changes in the economy,” said Steve Levy, senior economist at the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. He said California had lost 134,000 construction jobs since the summer of 2006.
“The housing sector woes and weakening economy have been known for a long time and can explain why unauthorized immigrants would stop coming and why some of those here would leave,” Mr. Levy said.
The Center for Immigration Studies is a policy advocacy group that favors reduced immigration and opposes legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants. The study supports the center’s contention that border enforcement and a crackdown on unauthorized workers and their employers would lead many illegal immigrants to leave the United States without being deported.
“The evidence presented here suggests that it has been possible to cut the illegal population by inducing a large number of people to leave the country,” the study said.
Federal immigration officials praised the results. “It reinforces what we always thought, that comprehensive enforcement is a critical part of the reduction,” said Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The arguments provoked by the study reflected the difficulties of discussing options for stemming illegal immigration, when researchers cannot agree on how many illegal immigrants there are and how they are affected by immigration enforcement.
Mr. Camarota and Ms. Jensenius based their findings on census figures for foreign-born Hispanics ages 18 to 40 with a high school degree or less. They estimated that three-quarters of those Hispanics were illegal immigrants, and that they made up about two-thirds of the illegal immigrants in the United States.
Using those estimates, they concluded that the illegal immigrant population had dropped to 11.2 million, from a historic high of 12.5 million in August 2007.
Jeffrey Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington who studies illegal immigration, said his research also showed a decline in immigrants. But because of recent changes in the census’s data reporting, he said it was too soon to make precise calculations.
Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego, said Mr. Camarota and Ms. Jensenius had applied “highly arguable assumptions” to their data.
“They offer no direct evidence that fewer undocumented immigrants are attempting to come to the United States, or that fewer of them are getting in, or that more of those already here are leaving the United States as a result of enforcement efforts,” said Mr. Cornelius, who has studied the impact of border enforcement over the past 15 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/us...partner=rssnyt
Certainly not, but that would be a problem with Tourist visas all along, right?
I sure cannot understand how blocking tourists would help the protectionist cause.
Stop illegal immigrants, I totally understand. How stopping 60 year olds trying to visit their first grandchild in the US is beyond me
I say let 'em all go home. They are not willing to weather the storm.
It took my family over 8 years to reunite. All of us came from the USSR separately, as they would not let whole families leave. We then had 10 years worth of court dates to finally achieve permanent resident status.
Difference is, my parents were determined to be here and nothing would stop them.
Hope the door don't hit them too hard on their a$$.
Course not, that is not my point .
"Most visitors are granted visa only when they can show some attachment to their home country."
Is this not open to subjective interpretation ?
Did folks coming from the USSR even have the luxury of returning? Folks coming from places like India or from Western Europe do have that luxury, and if they are sent back (or if they choose to leave) the US will be the one losing out in many cases.
Yes, we did have a choice. It was easy to return. All you had to do was buy a ticket. Didn't even need a visa.
There is a difference between being an American and just working in America. I am speaking in the context of the former.
It comes down to what you really want in life. If you want to be an American and become a part of this nation, you will weather any storm. If you just want to have a nice job and a safe nest - well then, you won't give a crap which country it is in.
Just working in America does not make you an American - you are just a guest who is working. It is when you make the US your country and are ready to give it all, then you are an American.
You can tell I am fiercely American. There is a certain inferiority complex that goes with us naturalized citizens in the US, which we adopted as our homeland. This inferiority complex makes us ACT LIKE WE ARE MORE AMERICAN THAN APPLE PIE.)
Comes from the heart of course. Not just a shallow expression of emotion.
I have ceased being a Soviet citizen WAAAY back when.
here here...Yes, we did have a choice. It was easy to return. All you had to do was buy a ticket. Didn't even need a visa.
There is a difference between being an American and just working in America. I am speaking in the context of the former.
It comes down to what you really want in life. If you want to be an American and become a part of this nation, you will weather any storm. If you just want to have a nice job and a safe nest - well then, you won't give a crap which country it is in.
Just working in America does not make you an American - you are just a guest who is working. It is when you make the US your country and are ready to give it all, then you are an American.
You can tell I am fiercely American. There is a certain inferiority complex that goes with us naturalized citizens in the US, which we adopted as our homeland. This inferiority complex makes us ACT LIKE WE ARE MORE AMERICAN THAN APPLE PIE.
Comes from the heart of course. Not just a shallow expression of emotion.
I have ceased being a Soviet citizen WAAAY back when.
My friends always make fun of me as an "orange neck"...you know, red neck on yellow skin. I'm far more American than most Americans, especially in California, and damn proud of that fact.
Here's another thing I noticed from the article:
There are still many people who want to come here. We can easily replace those who go back home with those who really want to be here. I don't see a problem.a burgeoning immigration backlog. At the end of 2006, more than 1 million skilled professionals (engineers, scientists, doctors, researchers) and their families were in line for a yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
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