The H-1B system needs an overhaul. For now, let's award visas to the highest-paid foreign workers and top graduates from top U.S. schoolsThe U.S. government will use a random computer lottery to determine which of 163,000 applicants receive the 85,000 work visas it grants this year under the so-called H-1B program. This roster of foreign workers includes some of the world's best and brightest minds. There must be a better way to determine which of them get the nod to work at U.S. companies such as Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG)—and which must return to their home countries, where they're likely to become our global competitors.
Finding the right solution to this contentious issue won't be easy. Opponents say H-1B visas cause job losses. Employers say they help fill critical job openings. Tech executives like Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Intel (INTC) Chairman Craig Barrett press for unlimited numbers of these temporary work visas; unemployed tech workers fight for their elimination. While these debates rage, there are bigger, related problems brewing. We have more than 1 million skilled workers and their families who are already here on temporary visas, and who are stuck in "immigration limbo" (BusinessWeek.com, 8/22/07).
Professor Guillermina Jasso of New York University, who is considered a leading expert on immigration, says the lottery system was designed to "provide a semblance of fairness." The American people and policymakers have not been able to agree on the exact criteria for admitting skilled H-1Bs, she says. One side argues that there is a hierarchy of skill and that we should choose from the top down. But others say we need to diversify and sample from a broad spectrum of skills. In the absence of any consensus, the lottery is the best way to go despite its flaws, Jasso says.
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