Why American Tech Giants Are First in Line for Immigration Reform
Heated discussions on the need for immigration reform have dominated talk radio for years, with most irate callers and hosts demanding reforms that will secure our borders, keep out terrorists, prevent crime, etc.
Microsoft, Facebook, Intel, and others are making their own calls for reform known—but from a completely different angle. Jennifer Martinez at The Hill explains: "The tech industry has lobbied hard for passage of comprehensive immigration reform—or more specifically, for reforming existing immigration rules so more visas and green cards are available to high-skilled and educated workers."
Alex Fitzpatrick at Mashable goes further into detail of the technology corporations' position by explaining that reforms would also "help more foreign-born students stay in the U.S. after completing advanced studies here."
Fitzpatrick later takes a look at those arguing against the tech industry’s ideas when he quotes Ana Avendaño, assistant to the president for immigration at the AFL-CIO. Avendaño’s fears are that "amendments would change the bill so high-tech companies can hire new immigrant employees without first making the jobs available to American workers."
But Bill Kamela at Microsoft explains to The Hill that this simply is not true. He refers to the fact that the company currently has a staggering "6,000 jobs open that it is struggling to fill with qualified candidates." These jobs have been open to American workers the entire time, and by no means do they prefer foreign workers to their American counterparts. Microsoft, like any company, simply wants the most qualified workers for the jobs—no matter their native country.
The tech sector of the American job market is lucky to even have jobs to give. But some actually blame technology for the decreasing number of jobs in other industries. MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson credits technology for both the "healthy growth in productivity and the weak growth in jobs."
Americans looking for work, especially within the companies pushing lawmakers for reform, should probably either ramp up their job hunting efforts or obtain the educational requirements these available positions demand.
If the reforms go through, the competition for these available positions could soon get a lot tougher.
