High fees and lottery removal threaten diversity, innovation, and immigrant security
The Donald Trump administration’s decision to scrap the lottery system for H-1B visas and the US federal court’s reluctance to intervene in the state’s policy decision to impose a staggering $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas are troubling. These decisions suggest that the United States aims to welcome only the best of the world.
On paper, the policy appears rational. Every country would like to welcome the “best and brightest”, who can strengthen its position in the world. As a sovereign nation, the United States can decide who it will welcome and who it won’t. However, this approach will transform immigration into an elite transaction, accessible only to the most privileged individuals.
As a corollary, however, this policy will deny entrepreneurs who cement America’s position as the world’s innovative country. The US economy will, therefore, have to operate with an increasingly homogenous talent pool, which is poor in science and mathematics. Small businesses, research institutions, and hospitals — long dependent on global talent — are quietly edged out.
Recently, Stephen Miller, one of US President Donald Trump’s closest advisers, has targeted the children of immigrants — who are bona fide American citizens — as a problem, claiming that decades of immigration have created millions of people who "take more than they give" to the US.
This kind of vitriol-filled remarks — from a person, whose great-grandparents themselves were immigrants of Jewish origin coming from Russia — will make the United States increasingly intolerant towards people of foreign origin, regardless of their success, wealth or brilliance. Policies may be written in bureaucratic language, but their social consequences are felt on the streets.
Xenophobia thrives when governments portray outsiders as economic and cultural liabilities. In such a society, achievement offers no permanent shield. Belonging remains conditional. In such an environment, how secure will even the most highly qualified immigrants feel? Let’s hope Donald Trump, whose ancestors came to the US as immigrants from Germany about 150 years ago, will have some idea about it.
