New Report Points Up Need for ‘Strategic’ Immigration Reform, Shapiro Says
Foreign nationals accounted for 70 percent of the full-time graduate students enrolled in electrical engineering programs at U.S. universities in 2010, says a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) report released Thursday to point up “the importance of international students” to the U.S. economy. In 2010, foreign nationals also accounted for 63 percent of those enrolled in graduate studies in computer science, the report said. In industrial engineering, the proportion of foreign students was 60 percent, the report said.
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CEA President Gary Shapiro, who took part in an NFAP conference call to summarize the report, said the findings present a strong case why Congress urgently needs to pass “strategic” immigration reform legislation that would encourage foreign graduate students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields to study in the U.S. and ultimately seek citizenship here. The report “is very helpful” because it “actually puts a number that’s very clear on how many of these students are coming from abroad in the very hard sciences -- the STEM subjects -- that we need people in,” Shapiro said. “We need these students for our competitiveness.” Tech industries “want the best and the brightest, and certainly American students are great, but we want to choose from the world’s best,” he said. “Otherwise, our companies are being forced to go overseas and open facilities overseas rather than in the United States."
Tech companies “want these graduate students to come to the United States, but we also want them to stay here,” Shapiro said. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, there has been “declining interest” among graduate students wanting to study in the U.S., he said. “We're making it very difficult for graduate students. We have to really open it up and make them feel more welcome. And that includes welcoming them as potential citizens."
Legislation that would allow foreign STEM graduate students and other highly skilled foreign nationals to stay in the country without being subject to current green card quotas passed the Senate on June 27 as part of the broader bipartisan immigration reform package. A companion bill (HR-2131) that cleared the House Judiciary Committee on June 27 would shorten the visa wait times for STEM candidates, among other reforms. HR-2131 “actually goes deeper than the Senate legislation in addressing the need to make sure we get the best and the brightest and that we allow them to stay here,” Shapiro said.
But the fate of HR-2131 on the House floor isn’t known amid the controversial debate in the House around comprehensive immigration reform, Shapiro said in Q-and-A. House Republicans met privately Wednesday to strategize on immigration reform, and “the reports are there were different views” expressed on how to proceed on HR-2131, Shapiro said. At the meeting, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor “spoke pretty vociferously on the need for legislation” along the lines of HR-2131, Shapiro said, citing as his source a member of Congress he spoke with, but didn’t identify. A Cantor spokesman declined comment. Given that “there is agreement” among House Republicans for visa reform as it affects STEM graduate students and other highly skilled foreign nationals, “I think that we're headed in the right direction and there is some chance” HR-2131 will clear the House sometime this year, Shapiro said. “Obviously there are some people who want to see everything just die and go away. But I think the majority of members of Congress at this point are not only supportive of what we call the strategic immigration reform -- the focus on the highly skilled and highly educated -- but also on resolving some of the bigger-picture questions.”
Lacking these reforms, enactment of which would be “the right thing to do for the future of this country,” Shapiro fears current “crises” would only grow worse for the tech industry. “The challenge now is for startups. Some of these graduate students want to start businesses, but they can’t. They're being kicked out. So they just go back to their native country and they become our competition.” For larger companies, the reforms would allow them to make “strategic” hiring choices “based on getting the world’s best and brightest people, which is what we should be doing as a matter of national policy,” Shapiro said.
Americans need to change their “mindset” on immigration reform, particularly as it pertains to keeping highly skilled foreign nationals in this country, Shapiro said. Today’s mindset ranges from “apathetic to sometimes less welcoming,” he said. “I think we as Americans have to recognize that it’s a good thing that all of the best and the brightest students in the world want to come here, and we should want to make them feel wanted. We should embrace them. We should reach out to them."
CEA members are “very, very frustrated with their own government,” Shapiro said. “Not only do tax policies encourage them to invest overseas, the immigration policies also occasionally force them to go to Canada or to go overseas. It seems so obvious to them that this should be changed. But getting action is difficult.” And for STEM immigration reform to get bogged down in “this thornier ball of wax” of broader and controversial immigration reform -- “that’s the card we've been dealt now for several years,” he said. “I understand that immigration reform is difficult, but we're biting off our nose to spite our face.”