Legal and Illegal Immigration: Understanding U.S. High-Skilled Immigration

Mark Krikorian; Helen Andrews

By Mark Krikorian and Helen Andrews on October 5, 2023

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Summary

In this week’s episode of the Center for Immigration Studies’ Parsing Immigration Policy podcast, the senior editor at The American Conservative, Helen Andrews, delves into the topic of high-skilled immigration and its political, economic, and cultural implications. Andrews, alongside podcast host and the Center’s executive director Mark Krikorian, describes how the H-1B foreign worker program, originally designed to attract highly-skilled workers, has been transformed into a means for outsourcing American jobs and undercutting the wages of American workers.

The H-1B visa program is a temporary, non-immigrant program for people in “specialty occupations” tied to a specific employer. Annually, 85,000 new H-1B visa holders enter the U.S., with an estimated 500,000 residing in the country at any given time.

In her recent article, Farewell, H-1Bs, Andrews responds to the tech lobbyists’ argument that H-1B workers are leaving for Canada due to long green card waiting times in the US. Even without job offers, Canada is offering permanent residency. Andrews writes “H-1B visa holders are not the world’s best and brightest, so Canada is welcome to them.”

Andrews also sheds light on Australia’s successful approach to tackling illegal immigration. Drawing from her decade-long experience living in Australia, she recounts how the country effectively curbed illegal immigration through stringent policies. Under the leadership of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the country demonstrated that political will and strict enforcement can secure borders.