Creative Class

The Washington Post asks:

Would America open its doors for the next Albert Einstein? Under the new immigration bill, the answer is maybe, but maybe not.

(Hat tip: Rob Greenhalgh)

For years, foreign-born Nobel Prize winners, corporate officers, and
top talents in sports, arts and sciences have had a fast track to
permanent residency, and eventually citizenship, in the United States.
In the name of attracting the world’s greatest and brightest,
authorities have granted these luminaries priority access to green
cards under a little-known provision offered to "aliens of
extraordinary abilities."

It has provided a way for a host of notable foreigners — among them John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Venezuelan-born New York Yankee Bobby Abreu — to make America their home.

But
the bill now being debated in Congress would do away with the special
"EB-1" preferred-status category, effectively forcing foreign VIPs to
take a number and get in line with everyone else. They would be subject
to a complex point system to determine their eligibility — assessing
education levels, English abilities, experience in the United States
and other factors — just as any engineer from India or farmworker from Mexico.

Although
the bill has come under fire from some who call it elitist — it would
tip the scales toward better-educated immigrants with good English –
the elimination of the EB-1 category would effectively mean that the
most elite foreigners seeking to build lives in the United States would
face new hurdles.

"It was almost like having a gold card or an
entrance to a private club, but under this new bill, you won’t have
that anymore," said Muzaffar Chishti, an immigration specialist at New York University.
"If they want to come here on a permanent basis, they will certainly be
in a more disadvantaged position than they were in the past."

Leading
critics of the bill say it is fraught with problems for top
universities, Fortune 500 companies, sports recruiters and cultural
institutions seeking to lure global leaders in their fields to work in
the United States. Though many such candidates would rise to the top of
the point system based on their academic backgrounds and language
skills, experts say permanent residency would by no means be assured.
They note that even Nobel Prize winners occasionally have weak English
skills, while highly skilled athletes and musicians often bypass
traditional schooling and do not possess high school diplomas or
university degrees.

Consider this: If Bill Gates — who dropped out of Harvard — were foreign-born and subject to the new point system, would Microsoft be able to hire him to live and work in the United States?

"There
is no importance being placed on the intangible talents of a Chinese
pianist or a Latin American baseball star," said immigration lawyer
Jonathan Ginsburg, who represents leading foreign-born musicians. "My
overall impression is that the Senate proposes to deemphasize ability
– extraordinary ability — in favor of paper qualification and a
narrow range of experience."

Last year, 36,960 individuals and
family members were granted "priority" permanent resident status under
the "extraordinary abilities" category. Under the 100-point system
established by the bill, "extraordinary or ordinary" ability in a
specialized field would offer, at most, eight additional points to a
candidate. That is less than the 10 points that would be awarded to
applicants holding a two-year college degree.

"Every effort has been made to create a balanced system," said a Senate Republican
leadership aide who demanded anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the
issue. "The aim is to focus efforts on attracting those immigrants who
have the combination of skills, education and English-language
proficiency that will make them productive Americans."

But the prospect puts some rarefied institutions on edge.

Penny Rosser, director of the international scholars office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
said MIT processes as many as 20 EB-1 applications each year for
leading foreign-born scholars. She would not discuss the immigration
status of individual Nobel Prize winners and other luminaries at MIT,
but doing away with the "fast track" system for such scholars, she
said, could exacerbate green-card delays that already run up to almost
three years for some applicants.

Worse, she said, the new system
would greatly reduce the weight of intangible talents and scholars’
fame in their fields when their applications are considered.

Critics
also say U.S. companies could be at risk of losing top foreign-born
talent to overseas competitors. Elizabeth E. Stern, an immigration
lawyer at Baker & McKenzie in Washington, said one of her
clients is in the process of getting EB-1 status to head one of seven
divisions of a major electronics manufacturer in Silicon Valley. Like several top executives in his field, she said, the client — whom she would not name — does not have advanced degrees.

"This
guy is one of a half-dozen people in this world who is up to the job of
heading a division of a multibillion-dollar behemoth. Now you’re going
to say that because he has no degree he doesn’t have enough points to
stay?" Stern said. "These are exceptional people, and by not treating
them as such this country stands to lose."

In the balance, observers say, are people such as Jasvindar Singh, 42, an interventional cardiologist from Fiji
who got a green card this year after receiving "extraordinary ability"
status in 2006. While in the United States on a series of temporary
visas, he pioneered a treatment for inserting a specific kind of tubing
into arteries to treat heart blockages.

"You have people who have
new ideas, who are involved in teaching local people to advance medical
care," Singh said. "Extraordinary ability status helps not only them,
but also their students, their patients and medicine at large. And
those are the people you cannot lump together with people applying for
family reasons or economic reasons just to get into this country."

Professional
sports organizations, agents and players groups are still assessing the
bill’s potential impact, but the short-term effects would probably vary
across fields and skill levels. Most foreign-born professional baseball
players, for instance, come to the United States on temporary "team"
visas that anticipate their ultimate return to their home nations. But
some — including the Yankees right fielder, Abreu, according to his
agent — have used EB-1 status to gain permanent residency. That avenue
would become far tougher for many sports stars who do not have advanced
degrees and excellent English skills.

Barry Frank, a top official
at IMG, which represents sports, fashion and entertainment
personalities, said: "Look, baseball is basically becoming a Hispanic
game. And don’t forget who their employers are — men of considerable
means and power. The owners are not going to let their stars get away
because of some silly Washington law. I think you’re going to hear some
noise."

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 26th, 2007 at 5:56 pm and is filed under International Creative Class. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.