Visa. Priceless

(The comment system chopped off half my comment. Let me try again...) People who care about attracting the best and brightest talk about increasing immigration. People who care about having a cheap and compliant workforce talk about increasing the number of H-1B visas. Look, @Hmm has a point. If the problem is not enough engineers, then there are a variety of solutions: more H-1Bs; easier access to green cards; cracking down on H-1B fraud and abuse; a new type of visa; really trying to get native-born American college students to study engineering; making a serious effort to employ older engineers. And, of course, higher salaries across the board. So when employers put all their energy exclusively into "more H-1Bs" and dismiss the rest of the solutions out-of-hand, I find it easy to conclude that "cheap and compliant" is the real goal.

People who care about attracting the best and brightest talk about increasing immigration. People who care about having a cheap and compliant workforce talk about increasing the number of H-1B visas. Look, @Hmm has a point. If the problem is not enough engineers, then there are a variety of solutions: more H-1Bs

Green cards take about 5-6 years for a MS student from india/china or 8-10 years if not having a masters degree.

Then fix the green card process! Or change the H1 so that it is not bound to a single employer though still keeping the time limit. The H1 process as is will always be viewed with great suspicion by most engineers and most of the public because its rules clearly benefit only corporations and apparently at the expense of existing citizens.

Hmm, green cards take about 2 years to get approved, if they get approved which is harder if you are not already here on an H-1 visa.

Why so much fuss over H1 visas? Why don''t companies pay for green cards? The truth of the matter is that an H1 visa employee is stuck to a particular company and has absolutely no leverage. Consequently his salary (despite what all companies claim) will be lower than the true going rate for that job. H1 visas are a way of lowering engineering costs. Conversely, with a green card, the playing field is levelled. If the job underpays or sucks, the employee is free to find employment elsewhere. Thus color me cynical on all the lamentation about the low number of H1 visas. It has nothing to do with bringing in talent

In the UK we have long taken in many immigrants, over recent decades especially from Asia. Many come apparently without skills and we bemoan this fact. In the past five years or so we have been more restrictive, developing a bit of the ''fortress US'' style of border control. The result - even in a depression (yes that is the right word) we have a critical skills shortage. Medical, technological and entrepreneurial. Worst of all for us English is the shortage of good Indian / Pakistani / Chinese chefs. Asian food, especially curry is almost a staple of the UK diet, and for some months now our local curry houses in the North West of England have been unable to retain / hire good cooks. Prices have risen, quality fallen and restaurants/takeaways have closed. The point is not a complaint about food but much more important one. When you restrict the free flow of people / send "illegals" home or impose border controls you don''t understand how your own ecenomy will suffer. The ''flood'' of mexicans complained about by the average US citizen is really an endless supply of hard working labour that has kept your economy afloat for generations, kept costs low and given you the lifestyle that you demand. Poor, prepared to work for minimum wages they may be, but just remember who it was 200 years ago that drove the hispanic people into poverty as you stole their lands, ranches and property throughout California, Texas, New Mexico etc. and forced them into the southern deserts of Mexico. We in the UK have nothing to boast about from our empire building days, but we are now making the mistake of copying your closed border policy.

Immigrants from Mexico, China, India, etc. come with nothing, and start buying houses, cars, furniture, electronics, and clothes. That''s the good part. They also send their kids to school, get sick, and in some cases have on-the-job injuries. The idea that some border makes any difference at all is silly: what would happen if we decided to draw a line down the Mississippi river and require a permit to move from one side to the other? This might create more jobs, but they would be lower paying and less productive use of talent. As you keep creating more boundaries, you further dissipate the best use of labor. This would be a good explanation of the kind of stuff happening in Europe.