Foreign intrigue: U.S. treatment of immigrants an issue for big companies

To see how current American immigration policies affect Washingtons economy, look no further than Oscar Santos and Arunabha Ghosh. Both are highly educated professionals with experience at Microsoft and Google, respectively, and both have a desire to start companies in the United States. But because of restrictions on their H-1B temporary visas for highly skilled labor, they cant start their own companies or receive a promotion.

After years of being pushed to the back of the line for a green card whenever he moved to a different department at Microsoft, Santos got fed up and returned to his native Mexico. He is planning to start a smartphone app business in a country thats more receptive to immigrants, such as Germany, Canada or Chile. While Ghosh still remains at his job at Googles Seattle office, he has begun investigating how to develop a tech company in India, his homeland.

I truly believe the U.S. is the best country in the world, Santos says. But these days, other countries are embracing the immigrant.

Jennifer Juo, a high-tech community consultant with the Seattle-based immigrant advocacy group OneAmerica, says, People dont realize the competitive issue that is at stake with the brain drain. People from India and China used to come here, but now people are going back home. That is not good for the U.S. economy and Washingtons economy.

The H-1B visa quota is capped by Congress at 65,000 per year. An additional 20,000 who receive masters degrees or doctorates in the U.S. dont count against the total. But the quota is quickly met every year: It took only until January 26 for the 2011 cap to be met.

Employers struggle to meet their labor demands in the face of this maximum. For example, in 2007, Microsoft decided to open a software development center in Vancouver, B.C., instead of in the United States to meet its mounting labor demands. Canada does not restrict the number of visas offered to foreign workers, though it recently placed a four-year limit on how long they can stay. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates testified before Congress in 2008 that the U.S. needs to expand the H-1B cap to address labor demands and to boost American competitiveness.

The problem with immigrant labor extends beyond Washingtons high-tech sector to agriculture, where it could have an even greater impact. Since President Obama took office, there has been an increase in the number of silent raids using so-called I-9 audits, which involves Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials poring over employment records of companies that use foreign workers. The audits center on federal Form I-9, which is used to verify an employees identity and to establish that the worker is eligible to work in the U.S. After such an audit last year, Gebbers Farms, a tree fruit company in Brewster, Wash., had to fire more than 500 undocumented workers, nearly a quarter of Brewsters population, leaving other growers in central Washington worried about further audits and firings.

It is highlighting a problem we have, says Jorge L. Baron, executive director at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. We have a number of people who are here without documents, and employers who need them.

To critics who say immigrants are taking jobs from qualified American workers and depressing wages, Pramila Jayapal, the founder and executive director of OneAmerica, says, Immigrants work in complementary sectors. They are not replacing native-born workers…. And in terms of depressing wages, if we could pass immigration reform, you wouldnt have a class of underground workers who have fewer rights and can be taken advantage of. The best way to keep wages constant is by legalizing undocumented workers.