The News & Observer by Paige Masten
As President Donald Trump looks to implement major changes to immigration policy, there’s one area that remains an issue of great uncertainty: visas for skilled workers intended to attract international talent in key industries.
The H-1B visa program allows employers to hire highly educated foreign workers in “specialty occupations,” such as engineering or technology, on a temporary basis. The program has existed for decades, and companies say it’s critical for positions that are hard to fill with American workers.
The program has recently caused a rift among Trump allies, some of whom believe it is a threat to the U.S. and its workers and should be reduced or done away with altogether. Other Trump acolytes, such as Elon Musk, have vocally supported it. Trump’s own position on the program is mixed: he recently called it a “great program,” but he has been critical of it on the campaign trail and attempted to suspend it during his first term.
According to the American Immigration Council, immigrants make up 17% of North Carolina’s STEM workforce. While not all of them come to the state through the H-1B program, North Carolina remains a popular state for H-1B visas.
In the Triangle area, most visa holders work at companies in Research Triangle Park or as faculty and researchers at universities, while Charlotte has a large number of visa holders who work in the financial sector, said economist Alejandro Gutierrez-Li, a professor at North Carolina State University who is an expert on immigration. H-1B visas are also a way for international students who come to study at North Carolina’s public universities to remain in the U.S. after graduation.
Gutierrez-Li said that the impact of changes to the H1-B program would depend on what exactly those changes are, and there remains a lot of uncertainty about what, if anything, can and will be changed regarding the H-1B visa program. It’s possible that the Trump administration could lower the annual cap on H1-B visas, tighten the requirements for obtaining a visa or attempt to suspend it altogether.
Protecting the program, as well as other forms of legal immigration, is a priority for U.S. Rep. Deborah Ross, who represents most of Wake County in Congress.
“I represent many businesses in the Triangle that rely on immigrants, including H-1B beneficiaries, to help meet their workforce challenges. In fact, almost every week, local business leaders tell me that increasing legal immigration is critical to supporting their long-term growth,” Ross said in a statement.
Steve Rao, a member of the Morrisville Town Council who works in the tech industry, says that concerns about visas and the green card backlog are the top thing he hears from his constituents. The vast majority of H1-B visa holders come from India, and people from India now make up more than a third of Morrisville’s population. He worries that without the H1-B program, those workers will seek employment elsewhere, especially as countries like Canada have made paths to permanent residency and citizenship easier.
“My first fear is that, you know, people would eventually leave and they would go to another country, and then that would hurt North Carolina in terms of job loss, brain drain, which I think is already occurring,” Rao said.
Rao disputes the idea that the H-1B visa program is taking away American jobs, because the economic success and innovation that these workers help create allows companies to grow and create new jobs for domestic workers.
“America has become a global leader because we encourage the best and brightest to come to this nation,” Rao said. “If we didn’t have skilled immigrants coming in, we wouldn’t have a Google, we wouldn’t have a Tesla. Making it harder for these immigrants to come into America, that is a very short-sighted economic argument.”
Link to full article: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article299515994.html