Building the US workforce, one engineer at a time

High-tech companies in the USA have hit the annual cap of 65,000 H-1B visas, which allow skilled workers from outside the US to work there. US legislators have been aided and abetted by labor unions and trade associations like IEEE-USA, which argue that immigrant engineers take jobs away from US citizens, increasing unemployment and depressing wages. Which point of view does the data support? For the purpose of this article, I focus on two points I believe have been consistently distorted in the context of the H-1B debate: (1) Skilled foreign workers do not take jobs from domestic workers, but in fact create lots of additional jobs. (2) IEEE-USA is lobbying the US Congress in a manner that is not only contrary to IEEE members´ best interests but antithetical to their instincts as engineers. The vast majority of engineers base their decisions and positions on facts, abhor politics and have a natural aversion to the games that characterize “business as usual” on Capitol Hill