Newsstand - VIsa/Travel Restrictions: Long Term effects..

An interesting article on how the current administrations policies are perhaps harming our future prosperity.

How the GOP's anti-elitism could ruin America's economy (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0401.florida.html)

Some quotes:

"Last year, for instance, a vast, critical artificial intelligence project at MIT had to be jettisoned because the university couldn't find enough graduate students who weren't foreigners and who could thus clear new security regulations"

..

"South African singer and guitarist Vusi Mahlasela to the Bogota-based electronica collective Sidestepper, have had to cancel their American tours because they were refused visas, while Youssou N'Dour, perhaps the globe's most famous music artist, cancelled his largest-ever U.S. tour last spring to protest the invasion of Iraq."

...

"Our only hope is to strengthen our creative economy so that it produces more jobs to replace the ones we're losing. That will require taking on the Washington lobbyists who put the fix in for established industries at the expense of emerging ones. Millions of new jobs in the wireless networking field, for instance, could be created if unused broadcast spectrum, currently controlled by TV networks and the military, could be freed up"

[This message has been edited by SJC2ISP (edited Feb 05, 2004).]

Youssou N'Dour

I really like him as he is a good singer.

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Careful on bashing the Bush Administration, please. I don't want to get into politics on here but I feel that if Kerry wins, kind of obvious by now he will be the Democratic challenger, it won't be any different.

The Gov't bows to big business and the little guy gets nothing.

We see it, we hate it, whatever.

The US has always been a pain to get a visa for and slowly people are going to say that it is not worth it.

I would have long ago gone to: Russia, Brazil, and Turkey as well as done more with China if I didn't need a visa, get my pic. taken, or pay an extortion fee on arrival.



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YAS+

The Visa issue is perhaps the biggest blunder this administration is making. They are exploiting the fact that some of the 9/11 terrorists misused their tourist/student status to implement a "foreigners keep out" policy. As a foreign-born US resident, I have benefited from the chance to build upon my world-class undergraduate education at a foreign university, in the excellent US graduate education system and then work on the cutting edge in US companies and research labs.

However in my circle of friends I have enough people who are fed up with US Visa polices regarding immigration. The current wait time for an Employment based Permanent Residency is anything between 3-5 years. Note that the time is not because of lack of Visa availability; in most years these Employment Visas go unused. It takes years because the INS (or whatever its new incarnation is called) sits on an application for years while doing nothing. During this period the foreigner can not change jobs or even get promoted to a better position since their permanent residency petition is tied to a particular job opening.

Many of my colleagues are fed up of this uncertainity and wait. I am talking of top-quality people with MS/PhD degrees from top US universities who have World Class research organizations (IBM TJ Watson Research Center, HP/Agilent Research Labs etc.) Many of them are serious about going back to the country of origin instead of putting their life on hold in the US while they wait for the INS to decide the fate. The same process used to take 10 months in the mid-90s.

The big problem with these people leaving the US work-force is that each one of them is taking half-a-dozen entry level jobs with them. Let me explain: Currently, the lower cost Asian organizations have a large pool of entry level college graduates to hire. However, there is a huge shortage of experienced professionals who can lead projects or be first or second level managers. The folks in my peer group (early 30s) have spent almost a decade studying/working in the US and can easily lead a team of fresh college graduates if they leave the US. The pyramid is just going to grow under them in the next decade. So each trained individual who packs up and leaves, is going to cost our economy a large number of future jobs, apart from the loss of talent.

However no one in this administration is considering these issues. As the article linked in my original post suggests, a big reason why America leads the world is because it attracts the worlds best and the brightest. From the Nuclear Bomb to the Jupiter Rockets which powered the Apollo program, to Andy Grove at Intel, foreign born scientists have contributed a lot to the US. Now the high-tech US industries are facing a threat from a growing pool of talent outside the US. In this environment, the US needs to try harder to lure the best of the world and also keep them here. However we are doing exactly the opposite. We are encouraging these best and the brightest to leave the country after we have trained them. This is a recipe for disaster.

The only way Americans can continue to enjoy a higher standard of living is if American technology and ingenuity keeps her ahead of the curve. Our stupid immigration policies are ensuring that we export the technologists who can then power growth outside the US.

Under Bush's amnesty plan it is OK for low wage fruit-picker to illegally cross the border but not OK to attract and keep the brightest the world has to offer.

Greetings by US and other immigration officers:

UK: Good Morning.
France: Bonjour.
HongKong: Hello.
Singapore: Hi
Canada: Bonjour. Hello.

USA: Why are you here?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Guy Betsy:
Greetings by US and other immigration officers:

UK: Good Morning.
France: Bonjour.
HongKong: Hello.
Singapore: Hi
Canada: Bonjour. Hello.

USA: Why are you here?
</font>

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

France:

BONJOUR!
hello

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Oh and Canada is first: hello (eh) and then
bonjour(eh), thanks.

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YAS+

Ok, that was fun. If you have seen the new signs at CDG that is very representative.

Germany is issuing special visas for tech. advanced persons who can help German society and we need that in the US.

A good friend of mine is from South Africa and while she had a high paying job here in the US some dear paralegal fowled up her US visa and then she couldn't work,which sucks.

I think Americans are sick of the several million illegal aliens who come here and pick fruit, as someone has said, but we chase away good people who would have given greatly but they go home.

My High School French teacher wanted her mother to move here from Belgium, the US wouldn't let her in so she moved back to Belgium to be with her mother.

One poss. and saving grace is to get into Canada and then reside in the US based on Canadian residency which some have done.

Or another option is to bless Canada's economy and intellectual pool.