Last month, our John Fund wrote a piece in the WSJ urging U.S. officials to issue a lot more visas to Russia’s young, well-educated people to come here. Our high-tech and engineering professions have shortages in many areas.
It turns out that a leading Western country is pursuing that strategy – but that country is…Canada.
Ottawa has just announced it will offer open work permits to any immigrants in America on an expiring H-1B visa.
Our idiotic immigration policy sends many of the world’s top scientists, engineers, physicists, physicians, and tech workers back to their home country after a few years here. We do this even though we have severe shortages of these highly trained workers. We also put tight caps on the number of these “brainiacs” – as Larry Kudlow calls these skilled immigrants – who can receive a visa. Last year the cap of about 85,000 H1B visas per year was reached in August.
The backlog for a Green Card can now be four years, and this year only about one in ten applications to the annual H-1B lottery were granted a visa. What’s next? Are we not going to grant a visa to the next NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama?
SORRY SIR, NO VISA FOR YOU
Canada’s proposed work permit would tell these H-1B visa holders: we will take you with open arms. Highly educated workers could quickly become permanent residents under Canada’s more sensible merit-based points immigration system.
If we don’t change our policy and at least double the H1B visas and expedite procedures for these immigrants to stay in the States, America is going to suffer a brain drain to Canada. What’s next? Moving the Statue of Liberty to Lake Ontario?
