Posted on 03/14/2006 8:24:36 PM PST by nickcarraway
US Congress is likely to take up a giant immigration bill this month, which recommends nearly doubling the number of H-1B skilled-worker temporary visas to 115,000.
The measures include not just increasing the number of visas but also add an option of raising the cap 20 per cent more each year.
If passed, the provisions buried in the Senate's giant immigration bill, would open the country's doors to highly skilled immigrants for science, math, technology and engineering jobs.
The provisions were sought by Silicon Valley tech companies and enjoy significant bipartisan support amid concern that the United States might lose its lead in technology.
They would broaden avenues to legal immigration for foreign tech workers and would put those with advanced degrees on an automatic path to permanent residence should they want it, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
H-1B visas were highly controversial in the Bay Area when their numbers reached a peak of 195,000 in 2003.
The new skilled immigration measures are part of a controversial 300-page bill by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa, now being rewritten by the committee with the goal of reaching the Senate floor by the end of the month.
Other provisions include a new F-4 visa category for students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
These students would be granted permanent residence if they find a job in their field and pay a $1,000 fee toward scholarships and training of US workers.
Congress had increased the visas during the late 1990s dot-com boom, when Silicon Valley complained of tech-worker shortages, although native-born engineers complained that their wages were undermined by cheap labour from India and China.
With the tech crash and the revelation that some of the September 11, 2001, hijackers had entered the country on student visas, the political climate for foreign workers darkened, and Congress quietly allowed the number of H-1B visas to plummet back to 65,000 a year.
The cap was reached in August -- in effect turning off the tap of the visas for 14 months. A special exemption of 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees was reached in January.
"We're in a bad crunch right now," said Laura Reiff, head of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a business umbrella group backing more immigration. "We are totally jammed on immigrant visas, the green card category, and totally jammed on H-1B visas. You can't bring in tech workers right now."
The provisions for highly skilled workers enjoy support in both parties in the Senate and in the Bush administration after a raft of high-profile studies have warned that the United States is not producing enough math and science students and is in danger of losing its global edge in innovation to India and China.
However, opponents of broadening immigration for skilled workers said doing so would defeat efforts to get more Americans interested in science, math, engineering and other technological fields.
Whaaa! mysterio cannot compete. WHaaa. The Goverment owes him a job, they have to do something for poor little 5th raterers because they are Americans! Whaaaaaa!
You sound like some of the black leadership. Give us this and give us that or we will riot, and kill.
Or possibly, I don't care.
No, I'll stick with yes.
Johnny, this was not a multiple-choice question. Explain your answer based upon survey's text.
How does this survey:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200507/survey.pdf
support your assertion that "US DOESN'T GRADUATE ENOUGH MATH AND SCIENCE STUDENTS"?
The average debt upon graduation at my $30k/yr college was $12,000.
Don't buy into the myths and supposed 'horror stories'.
Dude, read it yourself
Do you have any idea what it costs to live in Silicon Valley? At $50k you can forget about ever owning a house. Let's say you are making $100k. You buy a 40 year old 3 bedroom 1600 sq ft home close enough to not commute 3 hours a day in an area where your car windows aren't broken every night. $300k down (from who knows where) mortage $700k @ 5%. That's $35k a year in interest, $10k in property taxes. Take SS out of your check about $8k, and pay the state and fed some income tax and you're living on around $2k a month. Excuse me if after getting an advanced degree from one of the hardest tech schools in the country and putting in 60 hours a week if I expected more.
If they're God fearing honest American Nationalists, they'll do.
It would seem prudent to separate the sectors where there is real need from where there is mere abuse, then, rather than simply opening up the spigot.
Guess that makes the founders like the black leadership then, huh. There is a place and time for Revolution. And, as it happens, the Constitution provides for it. So what.
I'll be sure to tell my 20 year old that.
Get a clue!
That's the last straw. I'm not voting for a single Republican again.
According to joboutlook.com, the top salaries for a student graduating with a 4 year degree go to the engineering students - as your chart shows. 5 out of the top 10 jobs in demand are also engineering jobs (ie., those students getting multiple job offers upon graduation). So, there is plenty of financial motivation for students to go into engineering or the hard sciences.
I think it's the state of our education that is causing kids to shy away from the harder subjects. Sadly, most of our kids aren't capable of doing higher level math or physics in high school. So, of course they stick with the easier subjects in college.
Here is some scary information that I've compiled to try to motivate my students to pursue engineering/hard science degrees:
Engineering Statistics
*From 1992-2002 the California public universities number of bachelor degrees increased by 11%. The number of degrees in math, physical science, and engineering decreased by 8%.
*Less than 6% of our high school seniors plan to pursue engineering degrees, down 36% from a decade ago.
*In 2000, 56% of China's undergraduate degrees were in the hard sciences; in the U.S., it was 17%
*Japan, with half our population, has graduated double the number of engineers in recent years than we have.
*If present trends continue, 90% of all the world's scientists and engineers will live in Asia by 2010.
*A decade ago, American companies were granted 10,000 more patents than foreign countries. That margin is down to 4000 now with six of the top ten companies being foreign.
*Although we're still a magnet for international students, applications to our universities from foreign students have dropped by 45% from China and 28% from India, as those countries develop their top universities.
*And lastly, according to Bill Gates, "When I compare our high schools to what I see when I'm traveling abroad, I'm terrified for our workforce of tomorrow."
Johnny can't read?
Don't bother, Americans all working for 8.50 hour is a good thing, right??????????
MJohny is the first to spout how no one knows anything but him and will be the first to call names.
Look at his past - For Meirs, For DPW deal, probably for the scamnesty, etc etc. That tells you something right??????
But there is even more financial motivation to go into medicine or law.
In addition, starting salaries do not tell the whole story. There are other factors - such as: how many times willy you have to change jobs? how likely are you to be subject to age discrimination? Again, law and medicine, as well as many other fields are better in that respect.
The survey you posted only shows the number of PhD's earned, not MS or BS degrees. So it's not really indicative of the number of students graduating with math, science, and engineering degress. Furthermore, since 1999 half of the PhD's earned in the U.S. - according to the survey - were by foreign students. I would say this is proof that we aren't educating enough of our own students in this areas if we are filling our universities with foreign students. So the answer to your question is yes - the survey supports the view that we are not graduating enough math and science students.
Medicine? Who in their right mind is going into medicine as this nation rushes headlong into health care socialism? It makes no sense to claim that folks are discouraged from engineering study because wages might fall without making the same observation concerning medical study.
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