This coming September, driven by an ambition to increase the bloc's economic competitiveness and facing a foreseeable aging of the population and labor shortages in the next decades (expected to peak by 2050), the European Commission legislators are prepared to present for approval a proposal for an implementation of a new system of temporary resident permits to be selectively allocated to highly-qualified non-EU residents. Since this proposal would necessitate an infamously difficult to attain unanimity between the 27 member states, it is reasonable to expect a significant phase of debate. Nevertheless, it is understandable that the adoption of such a system is merely a matter of time. The legislators behind the initiative relate the recommended system to the US Green Card scheme, even dubbing it “Blue Card,” for some peculiar reason disregarding a conceptual and substantial difference between the contemplated European system and the American one - a difference that, at a closer look and comparison, divulges the relative irrationality and farce of the current US general immigration system.
The paradox of the world’s most symbolically representative immigration country - a country which even George Bush declared is “a nation of immigrants” and that thrives on its entrepreneurial newcomers - is that it is presently the one missing an open-door qualified immigration system. Legally immigrating to the United States is not easier. In fact, it is unexpectedly harder than in many other, even historically non-immigrant, developed countries; i.e. a potentially economically productive and professionally qualified or entrepreneurial immigrant candidate would find virtually no open options to immigrate by self-initiative.
The aforementioned US Green Card is either available to somebody previously resident in the country and legally permitted to stay for a longer time, or is distributed on a lottery (!), i.e. random numbers basis to unrestricted applicants over 18 from around the world. Once one is aware of this fact, it makes sense that European legislators, despite their claims, ironically, can only be color context-wise inspired by the Green Card.
Other immigration-dependent countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand (and recently the U.K.) have a long time ago adopted points-based open-door qualified and business immigration systems - with slight variations - without first having potential immigrants find an offer of employment or without an employer required to fund the visa, classifying migrants on their skills, personal qualities, suitable age, work experience, achievements in the field, past earnings, even achievements of the applicant's partner, and potential contribution to the countries' economies and societies in general; supported by ongoing emphasis on the economic returns of such migration, and are considering ways to expand the associated quotas even further.
Contradictorily in the US, the only initially temporary immigration option open to qualified non-residents is the H1-B visa, allowing American companies to hire, albeit with notoriously burdensome legal and financial difficulties, highly-skilled foreign workers, the limited yearly number of which has in October 2003 been groundlessly cut by US Congress from the even then insufficient 195,000 to 65,000, despite grave concerns of and active lobbying by the information technology companies.
The further deterioration of the currently inadequately cumbersome and bureaucratically thorny immigration system, inclusively for the already legally-residing aliens such as skilled employees and potentially socially valuable graduating students, and the lack of an open-door, even if competition based, legal system for qualified immigration simply leads to the only possible immigration most likely to prevail – illegal, and naturally unqualified. As opposed to the duplicity of the US state of affairs, EU justice spokesman behind the “Blue Card” proposal Friso Ascam Abbing admits that "We had better manage immigration properly as it is going to happen anyway."
Tightening and restricting legal immigration in traditionally migrant-reliant countries - the single one practically accessible for restriction - leads to it being automatically substituted by illegal, chaotic immigration. The previous statement is neither intended to denigrate the significant economical importance of illegal immigrants widely employed in agriculture, construction, hospitality and other industries, benefiting both businesses and consumers, and the Americans' dependence on them in a multitude of diverse sought-after menial and unskilled jobs, nor to advocate a need for severe curbing of unqualified immigration, since it eventually instigates continuous illegal immigration, as the need for immigrant labor has a natural tendency to be convened by supply.
The American immigration system, with its insufficient legal immigration provisions, regularly tacitly expected general pardon and consequential naturalization of illegal migrants in itself implies an initial breach of law – can it get any more hypocritical than that?
A governmental bipartisan group's recent months' attempts to manage the illegal immigration phenomenon by a - even though still strategically flawed - bill comprising of clauses for the strengthening of the south border security, encouragement of currently illegally residing immigrants to return to their home country and reapply for working permits through a system which also integrates a points-based format, where education and skills, including English ability, could contribute to an applicant’s case, and a stipulation of issuing of 400,000 further amended to 200,000 visas a year to the future temporary workers permitted to stay for two years at a time and renewed up to three times, periodically separated by a year's break between each visit, have disappointingly failed, even in spite of initial public opinion support.
The constant debate about immigration in America has an irrational inclination to pitch all issues into one large jumble, intermixing causes and consequences, revolving around all types of suspected problems caused by illegal residents, which include border issues, pressure on public services and criminal allegations, further fuelled by economically unreasonable fears that immigrants weaken the wages of the native-born citizens. Hence, public concerns about - as some economists and politicians argue - the falsely assumed negative consequences of illegal immigration and the allegedly threatened national security, exaggerated by the government's failure to satisfactorily deal with it, leads to an ignorant absence of differentiation of and antagonism towards immigrants, and consequential psychological and bureaucratic aggravation of the already ill-reputed naturalization process for the legally residing temporary and aspiring workers, making the US a decreasingly attractive destination for talented people from all over the world.
Considering current tech companies' widespread outsourcing, combined with the recently emerged phenomenon of inverse brain-drain and other developed and promising markets' ever -increasing competitiveness for talent acquisition, what kind of potential immigrants and most importantly - how is the US naively, or even better put – overly self-confidently hoping to lure in the future?
In the end, the United States, with its notoriously weak social support and welfare system can only attract generally self-reliant and motivated people who want nothing but to work industriously, be it a farm worker from Mexico or a qualified doctor from India; therefore not offering sufficient people an administratively accessible opportunity to do so will inexorably lead to the negatively perceived effects caused by the vicious circle of illegal, irrepressible immigration or alternatively, and even concurrently – economical underperformance provoked by competent personnel scarcity.
- This article was written for and provided to the Weekend Economist by Julia Socolov
The paradox of the world’s most symbolically representative immigration country - a country which even George Bush declared is “a nation of immigrants” and that thrives on its entrepreneurial newcomers - is that it is presently the one missing an open-door qualified immigration system. Legally immigrating to the United States is not easier. In fact, it is unexpectedly harder than in many other, even historically non-immigrant, developed countries; i.e. a potentially economically productive and professionally qualified or entrepreneurial immigrant candidate would find virtually no open options to immigrate by self-initiative.
The aforementioned US Green Card is either available to somebody previously resident in the country and legally permitted to stay for a longer time, or is distributed on a lottery (!), i.e. random numbers basis to unrestricted applicants over 18 from around the world. Once one is aware of this fact, it makes sense that European legislators, despite their claims, ironically, can only be color context-wise inspired by the Green Card.
Other immigration-dependent countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand (and recently the U.K.) have a long time ago adopted points-based open-door qualified and business immigration systems - with slight variations - without first having potential immigrants find an offer of employment or without an employer required to fund the visa, classifying migrants on their skills, personal qualities, suitable age, work experience, achievements in the field, past earnings, even achievements of the applicant's partner, and potential contribution to the countries' economies and societies in general; supported by ongoing emphasis on the economic returns of such migration, and are considering ways to expand the associated quotas even further.
Contradictorily in the US, the only initially temporary immigration option open to qualified non-residents is the H1-B visa, allowing American companies to hire, albeit with notoriously burdensome legal and financial difficulties, highly-skilled foreign workers, the limited yearly number of which has in October 2003 been groundlessly cut by US Congress from the even then insufficient 195,000 to 65,000, despite grave concerns of and active lobbying by the information technology companies.
The further deterioration of the currently inadequately cumbersome and bureaucratically thorny immigration system, inclusively for the already legally-residing aliens such as skilled employees and potentially socially valuable graduating students, and the lack of an open-door, even if competition based, legal system for qualified immigration simply leads to the only possible immigration most likely to prevail – illegal, and naturally unqualified. As opposed to the duplicity of the US state of affairs, EU justice spokesman behind the “Blue Card” proposal Friso Ascam Abbing admits that "We had better manage immigration properly as it is going to happen anyway."
Tightening and restricting legal immigration in traditionally migrant-reliant countries - the single one practically accessible for restriction - leads to it being automatically substituted by illegal, chaotic immigration. The previous statement is neither intended to denigrate the significant economical importance of illegal immigrants widely employed in agriculture, construction, hospitality and other industries, benefiting both businesses and consumers, and the Americans' dependence on them in a multitude of diverse sought-after menial and unskilled jobs, nor to advocate a need for severe curbing of unqualified immigration, since it eventually instigates continuous illegal immigration, as the need for immigrant labor has a natural tendency to be convened by supply.
The American immigration system, with its insufficient legal immigration provisions, regularly tacitly expected general pardon and consequential naturalization of illegal migrants in itself implies an initial breach of law – can it get any more hypocritical than that?
A governmental bipartisan group's recent months' attempts to manage the illegal immigration phenomenon by a - even though still strategically flawed - bill comprising of clauses for the strengthening of the south border security, encouragement of currently illegally residing immigrants to return to their home country and reapply for working permits through a system which also integrates a points-based format, where education and skills, including English ability, could contribute to an applicant’s case, and a stipulation of issuing of 400,000 further amended to 200,000 visas a year to the future temporary workers permitted to stay for two years at a time and renewed up to three times, periodically separated by a year's break between each visit, have disappointingly failed, even in spite of initial public opinion support.
The constant debate about immigration in America has an irrational inclination to pitch all issues into one large jumble, intermixing causes and consequences, revolving around all types of suspected problems caused by illegal residents, which include border issues, pressure on public services and criminal allegations, further fuelled by economically unreasonable fears that immigrants weaken the wages of the native-born citizens. Hence, public concerns about - as some economists and politicians argue - the falsely assumed negative consequences of illegal immigration and the allegedly threatened national security, exaggerated by the government's failure to satisfactorily deal with it, leads to an ignorant absence of differentiation of and antagonism towards immigrants, and consequential psychological and bureaucratic aggravation of the already ill-reputed naturalization process for the legally residing temporary and aspiring workers, making the US a decreasingly attractive destination for talented people from all over the world.
Considering current tech companies' widespread outsourcing, combined with the recently emerged phenomenon of inverse brain-drain and other developed and promising markets' ever -increasing competitiveness for talent acquisition, what kind of potential immigrants and most importantly - how is the US naively, or even better put – overly self-confidently hoping to lure in the future?
In the end, the United States, with its notoriously weak social support and welfare system can only attract generally self-reliant and motivated people who want nothing but to work industriously, be it a farm worker from Mexico or a qualified doctor from India; therefore not offering sufficient people an administratively accessible opportunity to do so will inexorably lead to the negatively perceived effects caused by the vicious circle of illegal, irrepressible immigration or alternatively, and even concurrently – economical underperformance provoked by competent personnel scarcity.
- This article was written for and provided to the Weekend Economist by Julia Socolov
