New laws slow flow of professional workers

By Devona Walker

Published: March 9, 2008

As the national immigration debate wages on, many people fear increasingly restrictive policies will cripple U.S. companies and universities competing in the global marketplace, encouraging talent and capital to go abroad.

Critics who are mainly concerned with undocumented and low-skilled workers moving into the United States say increased worksite enforcement and unprecedented statewide immigration statutes are deterring illegal immigrants from crossing U.S. borders.

Others complain that the country's growing emphasis on closing the borders is keeping out needed university professors and skilled professionals.

"There are very significant shortages of available talent around the country. If you can't find the talent, you either do one of a few things: You bring the talent in from overseas; you take the work overseas or you don't get the work done,” said Jeff Lande, senior vice president of the Information Technology Association of America. "Thanks to the way the country is handling immigration, companies are forced to take options two or three.”

Since Sept. 11, 2001, foreign-born professionals and students have faced intense scrutiny and been routinely denied working papers — a trend that led the group to file two lawsuits against the federal government, the Association of American University Professors said.

In the private sector, Microsoft Corp. opened a division in Canada last year. Corporate officials said immigration snafus had made recruiting and retaining skilled talent in the U.S. nearly impossible.

In fields such as information technology, research and development, science and finance, the skilled worker shortage in the U.S. has become critical, experts said.

At the University of Oklahoma alone there are 59 nonresident aliens and 99 legal permanent residents working as professors. Of 73 new faculty coming to the university in the fall, 12 will be nonresident aliens. There are 13 additional professors working under the highly controversial federal H-1B visa program, a working visa for skilled professionals.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, foreign-born professionals have contributed about $50 billion to the nation's economy and helped create about 500,000 jobs as of 2005.

"There are a lot of people who are trying to immigrate. If you go down to the office, it is swamped. People are under a tremendous amount of stress, and there's a lot more to be done,” OU accounting professor Dipankar Ghosh said. "They complain, because they feel they have done nothing wrong.”

Ghosh was born in Calcutta, India. He came to the U.S. about 12 years ago, long before 9/11 and unprecedented U.S. immigration services backlogs. Even so, he spent seven years in the bureaucratic shuffle. He also said increased uneasiness about immigration is not limited to Oklahoma or the U.S.

As the economy has changed, many countries have changed.

"In the U.S., I think one of the things that really bothers folks is that various people come from all over, and we have our own way of looking at things,” Ghosh said. "And sometimes they are not consistent with what is appropriate in the U.S.

"There is sometimes a clash of cultures, a clash of perspective of what is right and wrong.”

The opportunities available in the U.S. are likely to continue to attract immigrants, he said.

Just this year, his department had an opening for a Web programmer at a very competitive salary. It went unfilled for months.

"I had a devil of a time finding anyone, and I ended up stealing someone from Oklahoma State University,” Dauffenbach said. "I would distinctly like to see the smartest people in the world take up residence in the U.S. Where we are going to have our lead in a new world economy is human capital; that is what maintains our standard of living.”

At the same time, he said society is losing respect for and compliance with the law. While legal migration, especially for the skilled, must remain untethered for competitive reasons, he said the U.S. is in the difficult position of having to simultaneously crack down on illegal migration to maintain its way of life.

"When we lose that (respect for the law), who knows what the next step will be,” he said.

Technological innovations such as the iPod, Microsoft Vista, search engines and virtually ever major software package unveiled in the past five years would not have come about without access to foreign-born talent, he said.

The European Union recently unveiled blue card visas, which Lande described as rolling out the red carpet for skilled foreign workers.

Their home counties, such as China, India and North Korea, also benefit from their talents.

"Everyone wants them except us,” Lande said. "And in the American economy, IT is the lynchpin in every sector — not just high-tech but banking, finance. Every major corporation in America has been trying to innovate internally in IT. And no one keeps that in perspective.”

About 10 years ago, Ghosh and his wife contemplated returning to India. For them, making a life here was a very emotional decision. .

He realized that as a professional immigrant he has leverage, but in the real world, the advantage always goes back to economics, not citizenship.

"Not everyone is in demand. It's not because you are an immigrant or nonimmigrant; it's because of economics. I'm not saying it's good or bad; it's the nature of the beast,” Ghosh said. "To some extent it might be about where you are coming from or your last name, but more and more it's about your field of expertise.”

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