The newly confirmed director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), Joseph Edlow, has told The New York Times of two major changes he expects to enact in his new role: one, a revamping of the H-1B visa, which has allowed foreign workers to push out Americans in the high-tech sector; and two, a toughening of the citizenship test foreigners must pass to become naturalized.
H-1B has been a growing problem for years, and should be abolished. However, given the clout of the high-tech lobby, abolition anytime soon will not likely happen. Instead, the visa will be modified, though Edlow and USCIS have been vague so far as to how. Edlow did say, FWIW, that “the current framework fails to adequately support American workers and must be realigned to better serve the domestic labor market.” One possibilitiy is that the program, instead of selecting candidates based on a random lattery, the program will be refocused on more experienced and higher-educated aliens.
A study by the Institute for Progress earlier this year found that if higher salaries were given priority instead of using a lottery, the average salary of an H-1B visa holder could rise from around $106,000 to $172,000. Thus, fewer entry-level American workers would be shut out of the market. Outsourcing firms that rely on hiring large numbers of lower-wage workers will be disadvantaged, but researchers, PhD holders, and senior-level tech professionals will be given preference. That would do nothing to impede the takeover of America’s high-tech C-suites, but at least new graduates might have a fighting chance at a job.
Edlow told the Times:
I really do think that the way H-1B needs to be used, and this is one of my favorite phrases, is to, along with a lot of other parts of immigration, supplement, not supplant, U.S. economy and U.S. businesses and U.S. workers.
Edlow’s second point of emphasis is the restructuring of the citizenship test, which Edlow says is currently too easy. The current test has applicants study 100 possible questions and correctly answer six out of 10 when taking the test. The revised test would increase the number of potential questions to 128 (where it was during Trump’s first term) and require applicants to answer correctly 12 out of 20.
Edlow’s complaints about the current test — that it allows applicants to memorize questions and answers — might still apply to so mild a change, but it’s at least something.
For more, see the NY Times.