Editor’s note: Morrisville Council Member Steve Rao is a Board Member of the New American Economy.
MORRISVILLE – President Trump’s recent Executive Order expansion of his immigration ban for H1 B highly skilled immigrants hinders our global competitveness as a nation, and does have an impact on a number of industries in NC, including the tech, manufacturing, seafood and hospitality industries.
As the U.S. works towards economic recovery, these immigrants are vital to supporting industries and communities when they need it the most. In fact, H-1B visa holders, one of the newly banned groups, are job creators — NAE’s research shows that every H-1B holder creates about 1.83 American jobs.
Steve Rao with his family
Our recent Space X mission to the International Space Station would never have happened if Elon Musk had not received an H1B, Zoom would not exist, and many companies, like Google, Yahoo, would have been founded in other nations if we closed off immigration of highly skilled immigration to the United States.
I do believe that we are encouraging the best and brightest in the world to start companies in other nations with such a closed immigration policy coming from the White House.
While many Americans continue to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, immigrant IT workers play an essential role in helping the U.S. economy move activities online and maintain the digital infrastructure so that businesses can keep running and people stay connected.
In North Carolina and much of the Triangle, I am seeing firsthand, many Indian Americans and South Asian families affected by restrictions in the H1B Program.
Some families are being separated, spouses of the H1 B visa holders are not able to work, and I am hearing from many constituents, who have been waiting over ten years, for a green card. These are hard working tax payers, who are contributing immensely to supporting and creating the growing tech economy of North Carolina and the new jobs of the new economy.
Thousands in NC are in this situation, and over 300,000 H1 B holders in the US are in line for a green card.
Some statistics worth noting:
- Nationwide, 1 in 4 information technology (IT) workers, or 1.2 million people, are immigrants. Among software developers, the most common IT occupation, nearly 40%, or 529,000, are immigrants.
- Immigrants play an outsize role in the IT workforce across the country. For example, they make up nearly half of IT workers in New Jersey (47%) and California (44%), 28% in Texas, and 27% in Illinois.
- The IT sector is growing fast in the U.S. economy. Between 2013 and 2018, the number of IT workers grew by 1 million, or 27%, to 4.7 million total.
- Immigrants help ease America’s severe shortage of IT workers. In 2018, there were about 15 online job postings for each unemployed IT worker.
Finally, as we face huge public health and economic challenges, immigrants are on the front lines helping us respond to both. Yet even as they fight alongside Americans, they are under continuous threat from Washington DC. They are excluded from federal relief efforts (as are their U.S. citizen spouses), they are at risk of deportation if they are undocumented, and now legal workers that drive essential industries won’t be able to enter the U.S. to spur additional job creation and help drive the economic recovery.
Prior to the Covid 19 Pandemic, I am working with New American Economy to support bi partisan bills, like the Immigration to Innovation Act in the Senate, which would ease many of these restrictions.
Note: New American Economy is a bi partisan coalition of Mayors and Business Leaders, Committed to Comprehensive Immigration reform. This organization compiles research from economists to reveal the economic impact of immigration in the United States and in NC among a number of industries.
