Indentured Servants?
News today is that some in Congress want to up the H1-B visa limit by 30,000. It’s nice, but not much. I’ve ranted about this before, and in fact the situation has gotten worse.
It’s surprising to me that this issue, known as “retrogression“, hasn’t received more press attention. Basically, due to massive backlogs and delays in the last five years, the effective wait for someone from China or India to receive permanent residence is in some cases approaching ten years. That is 10 years of limited career mobility and freedom, amounting to virtual indentured servitude. Not only does the uncertainty impact ability to do career planning, it interferes with long-term planning for life decisions like home purchases, children’s school, and uniting with spouses.
This situation is hurting our ability to attract and retain the world’s best talent. And the situation is not getting better. IEEE seems to think that it’s just as well if we send back all of the foreigners in tech. It’s one reason I left IEEE. But besides the fact that it’s a matter of basic human rights, booting these immigrants (by policy or sheer ineptitude) is opposed to America’s interests. The native population currently has a negative birthrate, and without immigration the population would actually be declining. So, if you are going to have immigrants living next to you, wouldn’t you rather they be highly-educated and ambitious people with strong community values? In a competitive global economy, you’re going to compete with these people anyway — might as well be making them citizens, rather than propping up governments in other countries less favorable to U.S. interests. I get a feeling that the U.S. government and citizens are turning a blind eye to this terrible situation, perhaps out of a misguided sense that what’s bad for immigrants is good for us. They couldn’t be more wrong.