Agree. Let's take a look at the data:
The flows of foreign workers come in two different, but related, channels. There is the larger flow of more or less temporary workers in the nonimmigrant stream, and then there is the granting to a smaller group the status of permanent resident alien (PRA) held by people with green cards. While most nonimmigrant arrivals are, in fact, arrivals from abroad, the grants of PRA status are usually, but not always, to people who have been in this country for years as nonimmigrants.
Nonimmigrants. There are multitudinous visa categories that can be used by skilled foreign workers, but we are going to concentrate on only five of them: F-1, J-1, L-1, H-1B, and O-1 statuses; all of the people in the last four of these visa classes can work full-time legally in the United States, and some of the F-1s can as well. There are many other classes of nonimmigrant workers,5 but these five contain most of the skilled ones.
Of the five categories, only the H-1B workers are admitted against numerical ceilings; there are no numerical limits for the others. To provide one very rough measure of the size of the flows of these five groups, we use the number of admissions6 in FY 2009. Those counted are only the workers or worker-students, and none of their dependents. All numbers are rounded to the nearest thousand.
Nonimmigrant Visa Class
FY ‘09 Admissions
F-1 (students) -- 895,000
J-1 (exchange visitors) -- 413,000
H-1B (tech workers) -- 339,000
L-1 (intracompany transfers) -- 333,000
O-1 (extraordinary ability) -- 46,000
Total admissions -- 2,026,000
Most of the F-1s and many of the J-1s are not available for commercial work, being occupied at academic institutions. Some of the J-1s, particularly the youngsters in the summer work travel program, are not skilled workers. Virtually all of the H-1Bs and L-1s are college graduate workers or managers; the O-1 visa holders include people prominent in science, business, academia, and athletics, but not in the arts or entertainment.
An F-1 worker who has completed a degree has 29 months afterward during which he or she can work, provided the graduate is in one of a long list of academic specialties;7 it is during this period that the alien graduate’s employer receives a bonus because the employer need not pay payroll taxes.
The O-1 category is interesting, in that a person whose talents are recognized can nominate himself or herself for a visa, but there must be some indication that an agent or an employer will be involved in the alien’s trip to the United States. The requirements for extraordinary abilities seem to be rather demanding. USCIS is in the throes of streamlining the application process to make it less burdensome on the applicant. The initial visa can be as long as three years and it can be extended if USCIS agrees.
What is described above is a menu written in bureaucratese about some of the routes a talented, or at least an educated, alien can use to get into the United States and get a job. These routes are taken frequently by both the “best and the brightest” and by much larger numbers of less distinguished workers.
The size of these nonimmigrant worker populations — a subject never raised by the mass migration advocates or government officials — is remarkable. By population, I mean the number of people with these visas in the country, and in the labor market, at any specific point of time, known as the “stock.” (This is a different concept from the admission figures noted above, which measure the “flow,” to use the demographer’s term.)
The two largest of these populations have been estimated as follows:
H-1B -- 650,000
L-1 -- 350,000
Total -- 1,000,00
The other groupings (F-1/OPT, J-1, and O-1) may only add another 100,000 or so to the nonimmigrant skilled worker population, perhaps cancelling out the fact that some of the H-1Bs are teachers and a few are fashion models, and some of the L-1s are managers.
The major point is that there is a thunderous number of foreign workers with at least bachelor’s degree in the nation as nonimmigrants at any given time, most with tech backgrounds.
And they keep coming.
Let’s look at the annual additions of skilled nonimmigrant workers to our work force, as distinct from the less helpful admissions numbers shown above. What the open-borders types want to do is to enlarge the number of annual additions to the skilled work force by changing the migration rules. Let’s look at how many additions we are getting each year, anyway, under current laws — additions, I should note, to an already ample stock of such workers.
My estimate of these annual additions, under current law, averages at least 200,000 a year. There are three main components of this estimate: additional H-1B workers, additional L-1 workers, and all other nonimmigrant workers (F-1 with OPT, J-1, and O-1). Since the 85,000 ceilings for H-1B applications are routinely filled each year — though we are not there yet with the next fiscal year — and since there are no limits to H-1Bs hired by academic institutions (let’s call that 15,000 a year for convenience) we receive an additional 100,000 H-1B workers annually.
Professor Hira has estimated annual additions of L-1s at 75,000 a year. And I suspect that the other categories add another 25,000 each year.
And these numbers don't include this program: Cheap Labor as Cultural Exchange: The $100 Million Summer Work Travel Industry
The exchange structure was established in 1961, when Congress passed the Mutual Education and Cultural Exchange Act. The legislation sought to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.”11
Propelled by successive administrations, SWT grew dramatically. Its ranks of young participants swelled from about 20,000 in 1996, to 56,000 in 2000, and 88,500 in 2005. Participation peaked in 2008 at nearly 153,000 before the recession caused it to sag – to 132,000 in 2010 and 103,000 in 2011.
If anything, I believe these numbers are understated once you add in illegal aliens and permanent immigrants. We are bringing in huge numbers of both skilled and unskilled labor--more than we can absorb. This drives down wages and the labor participation rate. Americans without a high school diploma can't compete with the immigrants. And skiiled immigrants are hurting US college graduates. Our immigration policy is disconnected from our labor needs.