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.