Why blame H-1B workers for America's woes ???

As the U.S. recession deepens and job losses mount, finding fault with foreigners is very much in vogue. The tendency reared its head recently as U.S. senators Bernie Sanders and Charles Grassley began pushing for legislation that would restrict banks and other financial institutions from hiring immigrants on the temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

Grassley and Saunders got their dander up after an Associated Press story detailed how big U.S. banks brought in skilled foreign labor during the six years before the financial crisis.These workers entered the U.S. on H-1B visas and some firms (not necessarily these banks) found ways to pay H-1B workers less than Americans in comparable positions, the article claimed. Outraged by these findings, Sanders and Grassley pushed the Senate to pass legislation restricting banks from hiring H-1Bs

These visas are valid for up to six years. If a worker on an H-1B visa wants to stay permanently, he has to apply for a permanent resident visa.These visas are in very short supply and can take more than a decade to obtain. But placing limits on this mechanism for bringing foreign workers to the U.S. is not the answer to the country's rising unemployment rate and may undermine efforts to spur technological innovation. Holders of H-1B visas add substantially to U.S. innovation

One reasearch found that when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit. Indians contributed to 7.6% and Chinese contributed to 11.8% of all patents filed from 2000 to 2004, even though Indians and Chinese comprise less than 1% of the U.S. population each.

Tech companies were highly dependent on Indians and Chinese for their innovation. In 2006, these groups contributed to 33% of patents filed by Intel, 23% of those for Microsoft, and 22% of patents filed by IBM. Even for consumer giant P & G, the immigrant patent contribution was 11%.

Foreign nationals residing in the U.S. were named as inventors in 25.6% of international patent applications filed from the U.S. in 2006. This increased from 7.6% in 1998. That's an astonishing 337% increase.

As of Sept. 30, 2006, there were 1,181,505 educated and skilled professionals waiting to gain legal permanent-resident status.These workers were on visas like the H-1B. To make matters worse, there is yearly allotment of only 120,000 permanent resident visas for such skilled workers and a 7% limit on how many visas can go to immigrants from any one country.

So immigrants from populous countries such as India and China could be waiting decades for a permanent resident visa unless immigration quotas are relaxed.

The economic downturn has made matters much worse. When American workers who have the skills to file patents and develop new technologies get laid off, they often start new companies.And these companies generate employment and help the economy recover. When workers on H-1B visas get laid off, they usually have no choice but to return home and start their companies abroad.

So they are planting the seeds for future economic growth in their home countries, seeds that could easily have been planted in the U.S.So the critics of skilled immigration may get their wish. We will scare away the world's best and brightest who have always flocked to our shores. But the next Silicon Valley won't be in located the U.S. It will likely be in Hyderabad or Shanghai.