Tapsearch Com EditorBill Gates on immigration
March 8th 2007 05:00
The country's richest man has some interesting comments on immigration:
"Speaking before the Senate committee on health, education, labour and pensions, Mr Gates said that tighter US immigration policies – governed partly by concerns over terrorism – were 'driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them most'...
"Mr Gates said that other countries were taking advantage of restrictive US policies by catering to highly skilled workers who would otherwise choose to study, live and work in the US."
Here's the rub, though: It's very difficult for American immigration policy to sift through potential immigrants to pick the smart ones. We abandoned national quotas 40 years ago, and now we have a "flexible" worldwide ceiling of 675,000 immigrants. Job skills put immigrants in a preference category (and the more skilled, the more advantage), but so do "diversity" and family reunification. Not to mention the massive illegal immigration that uses up much of America's patience for newcomers -- the tech-savvy folks Gates wants aren't likely to sneak across the border in the back of a truck. The upshot, apparently, is that it's a pain for skilled workers to come here while unskilled workers come in droves, both with and without visas.
(This CBO document is quite helpful on U.S. policy facts, by the way.)
If Gates is right that anti-terrorism -- and generally, anti-immigration -- sentiments are keeping smart immigrants out, that's certainly a problem. But the solution is to discriminate between immigrants, not to throw open the borders. That's why his solution is right on the money, though he doesn't put it so bluntly:
"Mr Gates called on Congress to loosen rules that prevent many foreign students from settling once their studies in the US are complete. He also suggested that Congress speed the process of obtaining permanent resident status for highly skilled workers."
And good point here:
"Mr Gates acknowledged concerns over US job losses resulting from immigration but sought to distinguish between the need to encourage more highly skilled workers to enter the US and the broader debate on immigration reform."
People care more, and should, about agricultural laborers' wages going down than about computer engineers taking a hit. It would be quite sane to tighten up on low-skill immigration while making high-skill immigration super-easy.
By Robert VerBruggen
"Speaking before the Senate committee on health, education, labour and pensions, Mr Gates said that tighter US immigration policies – governed partly by concerns over terrorism – were 'driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them most'...
"Mr Gates said that other countries were taking advantage of restrictive US policies by catering to highly skilled workers who would otherwise choose to study, live and work in the US."
Here's the rub, though: It's very difficult for American immigration policy to sift through potential immigrants to pick the smart ones. We abandoned national quotas 40 years ago, and now we have a "flexible" worldwide ceiling of 675,000 immigrants. Job skills put immigrants in a preference category (and the more skilled, the more advantage), but so do "diversity" and family reunification. Not to mention the massive illegal immigration that uses up much of America's patience for newcomers -- the tech-savvy folks Gates wants aren't likely to sneak across the border in the back of a truck. The upshot, apparently, is that it's a pain for skilled workers to come here while unskilled workers come in droves, both with and without visas.
(This CBO document is quite helpful on U.S. policy facts, by the way.)
If Gates is right that anti-terrorism -- and generally, anti-immigration -- sentiments are keeping smart immigrants out, that's certainly a problem. But the solution is to discriminate between immigrants, not to throw open the borders. That's why his solution is right on the money, though he doesn't put it so bluntly:
"Mr Gates called on Congress to loosen rules that prevent many foreign students from settling once their studies in the US are complete. He also suggested that Congress speed the process of obtaining permanent resident status for highly skilled workers."
And good point here:
"Mr Gates acknowledged concerns over US job losses resulting from immigration but sought to distinguish between the need to encourage more highly skilled workers to enter the US and the broader debate on immigration reform."
People care more, and should, about agricultural laborers' wages going down than about computer engineers taking a hit. It would be quite sane to tighten up on low-skill immigration while making high-skill immigration super-easy.
By Robert VerBruggen
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