Why US brain drain harms developing countries - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
The companies that have exported or outsourced American jobs and industries to low-wage countries are now ferociously lobbying Congress to enact legislation to more than double the number of skilled professionals they can import annually under H-1B visas from the developing world.
Greased by campaign contributions, this expanded brain drain drive on Capitol Hill and in the mass media is led by the super-profitable, tax-subsidised corporate welfare Kings of Silicon Valley - otherwise known as Google, Facebook, Oracle, Intel, Cisco and their northern neighbour, Microsoft.
Over the objections of labour groups, these companies and their allies, including banks, IBM, Pfizer, and General Electric, have persuaded the US Senate to increase the yearly H-1B visas from 65,000 to 110,000, and as high as 300,000 under certain conditions. Foreign workers trained in science, technology and engineering are preferred to their US counterparts because, in the words of economist Ross Eisenbrey of the Economic Policy Institute, they are indentured "people who could not switch employers to improve their wages or working conditions…. Too many are paid at wages below the average for their occupation and location: over half of all H-1B guest workers [there are already 500,000 such workers] are certified for wages in the bottom quarter of the wage scale".
Bringing more such workers from abroad, says Eisenbrey, "would obviously darken job prospects for America's struggling young scientists and engineers" trying to find jobs commensurate with their skills.
Brilliant minds can do more good for developing countries if they apply their talents in their communities [Reuters]
