Liberalize High-Skilled Immigration

Over at the Daily Caller, CEI policy analyst Alex Nowrasteh and I tell the story of Jeffrey Lin. He is a Ph.D student at CalTech who holds three patents, has invented a device that would cure glaucoma, and is planning to start his own business to make his device and get it to people who need it. Who knows how many jobs he’ll create in the coming years?

Under current immigration law, Jeffrey might well be kicked out of the country. What did he do wrong? He was born in Taiwan.

Jeffrey came to the U.S. because of its top-notch universities. He’d like to stay here because the entrepreneurial environment and available engineering talent are better than anywhere in the world. He can create new jobs and new technologies here in America. Or, as under the current immigration system, he can create them elsewhere. This situation cries for reform.

Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona has proposed just such a reform. His new bill, the STAPLE Act, would basically staple a green card to the diploma of any international student who earns a Master’s or a Ph.D from a U.S. university in fields like the sciences, technology, engineering, or mathematics.

It isn’t comprehensive immigration reform. But it would help hundreds of thousands of people like Jeffrey Lin, and it would help boost an ailing U.S. economy.

You can read our entire article here.