Wall Street Journal
By Laura Meckler
June 5, 2014
What
do cancer research, attack drones and Google have in common? They all
have been advanced by immigrants to the United States, a point that
high-tech backers of an
immigration overhaul are pushing in a new report being released
Thursday.
The
report, by the National Foundation for American Policy, a conservative
research group, argues that immigrant contributions have ramped up since
the 1960s, when major
restrictions on immigration to the U.S. were lifted.
From
1901 to 1959, for instance, immigrants to the U.S. won 25 Nobel Prizes
in Chemistry, Medicine and Physics. In the 53 years that followed,
immigrants won 72.
“The
right laws can play an important part in whether a country benefits
from increase globalization, particularly rising educational achievement
in India, China and elsewhere,”
the report concludes.
Most
of the noise about immigration legislation comes from people with
strong opinions about how to handle 11 million or so people in the U.S.
illegally. But the fate
of legislation granting more visas and green cards for high-tech
workers—badly wanted by Silicon Valley and others—is tied to the larger
immigration politics. The Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill last
year that dealt with the undocumented as well
as high-tech visas and other issues. But all that has stalled amid GOP
opposition in the House.
The
high-tech proposals are less controversial than those affecting
undocumented immigrants, but they are opposed by some who argue that
giving more visas to foreigners
undercuts American workers.
Notwithstanding
the complicated politics, some see a window for possible legislative
action in the House in June or July. The new report hopes to give it a
shove by highlighting
the contributions of immigrants.
Highlights from the report include:
•An
Israeli-born immigrant entrepreneur developed the prototype for attack
drones, which are a central part of U.S. military strategy today.
•At
the top seven cancer research centers, 42% of researchers are
foreign-born. Many come from countries that had severe immigration
restrictions prior to 1965, such as
China, India and South Korea.
•In
2011, foreign nationals accounted for 71% of full-time graduate
students in electrical engineering and 65% in computer science at U.S.
universities, up from 44% and
35%, respectively, in 1982.
•Between
2006 and 2012, 92 companies with venture backing that became publicly
traded had at least one immigrant founder, including Google, eBay,
LinkedIn and Tesla Motors.
The
foundation also is releasing an analysis of shortcomings in current
high-skilled immigration policy and an analysis of how the Senate bill
and one pending in the House
would address various questions. Both reports were funded by the Ewing
Marion Kauffman Foundation.
Joe
Green, president of the pro-immigration group Fwd.us, which was
launched by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, will be on hand Thursday to
tout the report to reporters.
Facebook is one of many tech companies that depends on high-skilled
immigrant labor.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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