Opinion: We Need More Skilled Immigrants, but Can't Get Them

(Aug. 9) -- When they enacted their tough anti-immigration law, Arizona's leaders said a lack of action in Washington forced
them to take matters into their own hands and compel local cops to confront illegal immigrants in their border state.

While their frustration is understandable, the real problem with the nation's immigration law isn't lack of enforcement -- it's the fact that the country's entire approach to immigration is woefully out of step with today's economic needs.

The foundations of the current immigration system were laid back in 1965, at a time when the country's manufacturing economy needed bodies to work in factories and family reunification was the priority.

But this approach is ill-suited to today's economy, which needs highly skilled workers, many of whom are found abroad.

In researching our book "Immigrant Inc.," we were astonished at the sparse number of visas set aside for people with skills needed in the New Economy.

Of the 1 million green cards issued each year on average, only about 90,000, or less than 10 percent, are set aside for workers with exceptional skills or capital.

By contrast, Canada, which did a lot of things right going into the financial crisis, has placed a heavy emphasis on welcoming "economic immigrants" -- those skilled workers, entrepreneurs and investors who can quickly strengthen the Canadian economy. As a result, more than 60 percent of the 250,000 Canadian permanent-resident visas issued per year are given to these job-creating immigrants.

Arizona's new law, and the tough talk in Washington, will do nothing to fix the U.S. immigration imbalance. That has to change. The fact is that immigrants are, and will continue to be, vital to the country's future prosperity.

Consider these facts:

• Between 1995 and 2005, 25 percent of every new high-tech company in America had an immigrant founder. In Silicon Valley, the mecca of the smart economy, immigrants played founding roles in more than half of the high-tech startups.

• Companies created by immigrants loom like icons of the information technology era: Intel, Google, Yahoo, Sun Microsystems, YouTube, eBay, PayPal and LinkedIn.

• Research by the Kauffman Foundation reveals that today's immigrants are nearly twice as likely as native-born Americans to launch a business.

• Without our immigrants, America simply could not compete with Asia. The nation's strongest competitor in the global race to power electric cars -- Boston battery-maker A123Systems -- was founded largely by immigrant entrepreneurs using technology invented by immigrant scientists at MIT.

• While making up less than 13 percent of the population, immigrants possess half of all new doctorate degrees in engineering. Forty percent of all new master's degrees in computer sciences, physical sciences and engineering are going to immigrants. In America's workforce, nearly half of all scientists and engineers with master's degrees are foreign-born.

Certainly America produces native-born scientists and entrepreneurs with world-class skills. But high-skill immigrants, often the best and brightest from the developing world, lend us a competitive edge that no other nation can match.

Some leaders are catching on to this.

A coalition of luminaries, led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, recently formed the Partnership for a New American Economy to push comprehensive immigration reform.

"If you want to solve the unemployment problem in America, you have to open the doors to immigrants who will come here and create businesses, because when the tide comes in, everybody's boat rises," Bloomberg said as he introduced the partnership in late June. "We need more immigrants, not less."

Bloomberg and the big-city mayors and business leaders who have joined him -- people like Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and founder of News Corp., and Michael Nutter, the mayor of Philadelphia -- insist that economic-minded reform is just as critical as security-minded reform. They lament that an outdated immigration system, restrictive laws and a focus on enforcement has thwarted millions of high-skill immigrants from entering America or becoming citizens.

Bloomberg's coalition is calling for tougher border security and an end to illegal immigration, but also for more visas for hard-working, dynamic, entrepreneurial people who create jobs and revive communities.

"It's our great strength as nation, and it's also critical for economic growth," said Walt Disney Chairman and CEO Robert Iger.

Immigrants, Iger remind us, are America's secret ingredient. They are also the force that could propel us to a new economic prosperity.

Richard T. Herman and Robert L. Smith are the co-authors of "Immigrant Inc.: Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy" (2009, John Wiley & Sons).