At any given time, President Barack Obama seems to be juggling a million initiatives and simultaneously looking to do more. This past Wednesday, the White House mentioned that immigration reform is on the table for this year. Also making the list of priorities now: the economy, health care, Iraq, climate change and immigration. The possible comprehensive immigration legislation would include a road to citizenship for the roughly 12 million illegal immigrants. Essentially, the legislation would incorporate illegal immigrants into the legal system by acknowledging that they broke the law, and imposing fines and penalties commensurate with the offense. Also, it would aim to prevent future illegal immigration by improving border enforcement, bettering the national system of validating the legal immigration status of new workers and penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants. Even though a very similar comprehensive immigration proposal was bipartisan and supported by President George W. Bush, it was defeated in 2007 by a groundswell of opposition from voters. With the current, depressed economic state, is it the right time for such comprehensive immigration reform? Before looking at the political feasibility of such an endeavor, we must look at what ideal immigration reform should address.

Although the immigration reform debate will focus mostly on what to do with the current illegal immigrant population, an equally pressing problem is changing the system for high-tech and skilled labor. The active recruitment of scientists, engineers, doctors and other skilled labor began after World War II, and was codified through the Hart-Cellar Amendments of 1965. This act allotted 20 percent of spots to give preference to skilled immigrants to stay indefinitely, and another 20 percent included the spouses of these skilled immigrants. However, this somewhat generous allocation was restricted in 1976 by the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments, which required immigrants to have firm job offers. In the 1980s, the rules governing family reunification were tightened as well. At the behest of technology firms, the government created the H1-B visa, a temporary visa, in the early 1990s. This visa allowed corporations to import skilled workers for a maximum of three years. Initially, 65,000 visas were created, and the limit was twice raised till it reached 195,000 in 2001. However, in 2004 the limit was reduced back to 65,000. This has created a great disparity in the number of visas sought and those granted; in 2008, companies made 163,000 applications. However, this is only the beginning of the problem.

The main problem with current legislation for skilled immigrants is that it says, “We want your labor, but not your lives.” While we created the H1-B visa program, we made it increasingly difficult to get permanent visas. Most skilled immigrants have to wait an average of 10 years in order to get a permanent visa. Professor Vivek Wadhwa of Duke University estimates that 500,000 engineers, scientists, doctors and other professionals are stuck in “immigration limbo” — they can’t change jobs because their immigration status depends on their current job. Overwhelmingly, foreign students want to return home because they have heard from older friends that opportunities were as plentiful or more back home. Many had climbed the organization ladder quickly and found better professional opportunities. In addition, workers on H1-B visas are not allowed to bring the spouses to the U.S. While most of their predecessors dreamed of making it in the U.S., only six percent of Indian, 10 percent of Chinese and 15 percent of European students want to stay permanently. According to Ron Hira, professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-author of Outsourcing America, “the H1-B visa program … is thoroughly corrupted and needs to be cleaned up immediately.”

The H1-B Visa program has helped neither the immigrant worker nor the American worker. While the immigrant worker is effectively barred from settling here, the American worker sees a decline in his pay and working conditions. In fact, a 1989 National Science Foundation position paper, written when Congress was considering the H1-B visa program, promoted the program as a method to depress Ph.D. salaries by inundating the market with foreign students. The H1-B visa program has an especially detrimental impact on older U.S. workers. Corporations use H1-B visas to employ cheaper, younger workers instead of older U.S. citizens and permanent residents (the median age of an H1-B worker is 27). Furthermore, the program is ravaged by immense fraud and abuse. Corporations not only exploit loopholes, but commit serious fraud or technical violations. Finally, the H1-B visa program exacerbates outsourcing. Kamal Nath, India’s commerce minister, called the H1-B visa, “the outsourcing visa.” Companies use the H1-B visa program to aid outsourcing by bringing foreign workers to the U.S. for training and then rotating them back home, with improved skills. The Department of Homeland Security recently found that one in five H1-Bs were granted under false pretenses. It is time we reform the H1-B visa program, clear the backlog of immigrants waiting for a green card and make the skilled immigration system much more efficient and fair (to both immigrant and American workers).

We must give incentives to foreign students and skilled immigrants to stay in the U.S. by increasing the allotment of green cards and changing the student visa to include the option of staying for three to five more years upon graduation. Furthermore, we must repeal the ban on family reunification under the H1-B program. Finally, the H1-B visa program must be restructured so that it becomes a fast-track to permanent residence, as opposed to being an “outsourcing facilitator.” In the current economic situation, immigration reform should not be discarded, rather it must it is crucial to the revitalization of our economy. Skilled immigrants will aid the recovery of the economy through their entrepreneurship, strong work ethic and fresh perspective.