Market Based Skilled Immigration

The current system is only going to dissuade more young people domestically from getting themselves educated for high skilled jobs due to artificially depressed wages, while the imported talent will have (and already is) an ever increasing concentration of mediocre people willing to undergo prolonged period of indentured employment.

The American policy on legal, skilled immigration is not working for anyone.


The whole idea of skilled immigration is to make sure a country can tap into the best talent in the World, while preventing a shortage in supply of skills from raising the wages of that labor to levels that it becomes unprofitable to employ them. Yet a pendulum swing in the other direction, with companies calling the shots in the process, and a long drawn one at that, only leads to import and absorption of deficient talent instead of the best, and an unwarranted depression of the wage level for those skills, causing even fewer people to specialize in those skills domestically, especially if the price of Education is also scaling the stratosphere. Add to that the relative ease with which people can come in for low payment employment either illegally or on asylum (often on the pretense that they are persecuted in their respective home countries), and you reap a fast growing pool of people that seek Social Security and Medicare benefits in old age yet the young in that category contribute little to fund it as they just don’t have the income.

The current American skilled immigration system requires an employer sponsorship of a candidate’s permanent residence, and is a goldmine for the Corporations to exploit the situation. Not only a company gets to recruit for cheap abroad, but can continue to pay incommensurately low pay, perks and position compared to the person’s value add, and do this throughout the long process of employer sponsored green card process. A process like this is not merely an asset to prevent artificial wage spikes for certain skills, it is a bigger liability because this is a pendulum swing to the other extreme. Now, you get wages artificially depressed and, over time, you attract mediocre people into the game that will be willing to brave! through years of wage exploitation to receive their prized green card – that takes them towards unemployment benefits, freedom to switch employers, and social security and other gains.

The skilled immigration system has a crying need to be made market oriented, and receive this change fast. The key to a market based immigration system, where the aspiring immigrant is not treated a indentured labor by his sponsoring employer, lies in the following approach:

No concept of employer sponsorship for Immigration

A corporation be made free to recruit outside the country and bring the person in on a Work Visa. The employer pays a fee for doing that, say, $50,000 (or some figure depending upon the size of the company). This ensures that a company goes outside for recruitment only if it is really facing a skill shortage domestically.

Now, in such a scheme, having filed for the Work Visa does not make the employer own the non immigrant worker. The recruit is free to switch jobs at will; however the new employer pays the Government pro rata of this $50,000 fee if this job switch occurred less than 5 years from his import into the country. The Gov then pays off the original employer this pro rata amount after deduction of a modest change fee. The process can continue through to the subsequent employer(s).

In this system, when the person has worked in the United States for 5 years, and has contributed a certain minimum in federal taxes, it ought to be deemed that indeed the American economy needs and has room for this person. S/he can then simply apply, without attorney representation, for a permanent residence, and receive the same upon clearing security checks et al. In fact, in this approach, there is even not as much attraction for a green card, except unemployment benefits, as the person is always truly free to switch employers on a Work Visa, even have out of job periods, and just stay as long as he is able to support himself and his family on his income or savings - if not, he would return to his home country without any policing. A pathway direct from Visa to citizenship could also be considered after having successfully stayed around say, 8 years (or 10) and having contributed certain minimum amount in taxes.


The current system is only going to dissuade more young people domestically from getting themselves educated for high skilled jobs due to artificially depressed wages, especially compared to what it costs in the United States to buy that Education, while the imported talent will have (and already is) an ever increasing concentration of mediocre people willing to undergo prolonged period of indentured employment. Leaving skilled immigration in the tight embrace of Gov officials, serpentine procedures, clumsy legalese, and routine-snug large Corporations is extremely corrosive to economic vibrancy.