ACIP thanks the 95 members who responded to our Question of the Week!  Here are the results: 

 

October marks the 125th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. For more that 100 years, she has stood as a beacon of opportunity and hope, welcoming to our shores innovators and creators who have made great contributions to America. In honor of her anniversary, ACIP will highlight each day this month one of the world’s best and brightest who have helped keep America a great beacon for economic strength, opportunity and innovation.

ACIP and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have released a joint report, “Regaining America’s Competitive Advantage: Making Our Immigration System Work.”  The report, authored by Stuart Anderson, the Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy, proves that America’s greatness rests in our historic openness to new people and innovations and makes the case for fixing the problems in America’s employment-based immigration system with policies that will grow U.S. jobs and our economy for the future. 

Changes in business models and markets, coupled with demographic realities, increasingly require businesses to hire, train and transfer professionals across borders. The contributions of highly-educated foreign workers and the competition among jurisdictions to attract the “best and brightest” are well documented. Yet the system of differing national immigration laws hinders the efficient management of international personnel and imposes unnecessary costs and burdens on employers, thereby diverting resources from business objectives that would benefit economic development. Development is not a primary business objective but rather is a consequence of business activities. Having the right person in the right place at the right time allows business to create jobs and to carry out investment that ultimately results in development.

The inability of Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation in 2006 and 2007 has led some to propose a radical change to immigration policy in the form of a commission to set and regulate the annual admission of low- and high-skilled temporary workers and employer-sponsored immigrants (green card holders). There is no evidence such a policy change would solve the political problems that prevented immigration reform legislation from becoming law or that such a commission would be capable of setting appropriate admission levels so U.S. employers can gain access to talent and create more jobs and innovations inside the United States. The main proponents of a commission – the AFL-CIO and Change to Win (endorsing a proposal by Former Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall and the Economic Policy Institute) and the Migration Policy Institute – actually offer diametrically opposite views on what a commission might accomplish. The former seeks to restrict the flow of foreign labor into the United States while the latter hopes to provide greater access.

The most valuable resource of any global firm today is the intellectual capital in the minds of its professional employees. Changing business models and demographic trends will require increased global mobility over the next several decades. The challenge for government and business leaders is to determine how best to harness intellectual capital to remain competitive in a global economy.