More than 40 former US national security officials sent a letter to Congress on Monday asking it to ease immigration restrictions on high-tech foreign talent in order to strengthen US leadership in science and technology.
The letter was sent on Monday to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and members of the bipartisan Innovation Coordination Committee.
“America’s leadership in science and technology is a cornerstone of our competitiveness, and much of that depends on our ability to attract domestic and international talent,” the letter said. “China has been our most important technological and geopolitical rival in recent years. It is hard for the US to fail if it has the best technology talent in the world. If not, it’s hard for the U.S. to win.”
From computer science to space science, global scientific talent is vital in key areas of the U.S. defense industrial base, the letter said. Currently, two-thirds of researchers working on artificial intelligence and semiconductors in the United States were born abroad. “The United States remains the most desirable place for the world’s best scientists and engineers — something that China has not yet been able to replicate, despite its massive investments,” the joint letter said.
“Bottlenecks in the U.S. immigration system are squeezing that advantage,” the letter said. “Today, India’s best science and technology talents have to wait 10 years to get a green card. These bottlenecks are causing a brain drain — more than half of AI PhD students say they left the US because of immigration.”
The letter was signed by Michael Chertoff, George W. Bush’s homeland security secretary, Steven Chu, the former energy secretary, and 47 other former senior government officials.
International students on temporary visas account for more than half of PHDS in economics, computer science, engineering, mathematics and statistics in the US, according to a report earlier this year by the government’s National Science Council. But in science and engineering, China is rapidly closing the gap with the United States in the number of PHDS awarded. In 2018, China’s number of PhD graduates in these fields approached that of the US.
In response to the war for tech talent with China, the US House of Representatives passed the America Competition Act of 2022 in February. It includes a provision that foreign PhD graduates in STEM(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) will not be subject to national quotas when applying for a green card.
The United States currently issues about 140,000 professional green cards a year, but applicants from each country are limited to 7% of the total quota. There is a huge backlog of applications from large immigrant countries such as India and China, and it often takes 7–8, even 10 years from entry to permanent residency status.
The bipartisan Innovation Coordinating Committee is scheduled to begin negotiating house and senate versions of the bill this month. Several Republican senators, including Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), have said they are open to waivers for green card quotas for high-tech talent.
In order to win in this competition, someone says green card steps should be simpler and more efficient.
Graham Webster, a digital economy fellow at the New America Foundation and editor in chief of the DigiChina project at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, told VOA in an earlier interview. The skilled immigration reform provisions in the USA Competes Act are “significant” for those who qualify. He said the current skilled immigration system puts foreign professionals working in the United States through a “highly uncertain and often painful process.”
Earlier, during the Trump administration, a Reforming Immigration system bill named RAISE(Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy) was proposed to set up a merit-based points system based on skills, giving preference to applicants with high education, high salary and high income. Since then, however, the government has tightened its immigration policy since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, while the squeeze on applications has been severe.
In fact, the Biden administration in January directed the State Department, through an executive order, to allow eligible visiting students in STEM fields to attend academic training for up to 36 months after graduation, in an effort to attract international students specializing in STEM.