Immigration: America's Achilles Heel
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
America.
A nation whose foundation is built on immigration. A country that for so long has been the preferred destination of the best and brightest from around the world. Growing up in the 80s, it was hard to conceive that any other country could or would ever complete with America for that title. There were not one, not two, but three Iron Eagle movies for crying out loud!
Yet here we are.
Reading through my social media feeds yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice that many of the annual tributes to immigration and the American Dream felt wistful. As though people knew that something great was slowly slipping away.
Some 4th of July observations were more overt than others
Coming to America
When I first moved to the U.S. in 2002, the immigration process was surprisingly straightforward. I entered on an F-1 “student” visa, which allowed me to attend graduate school at Stanford. After graduating, the “Optional Practical Training” (OPT) portion of the F-1 kicked in, which allowed me to work anywhere in the U.S. for 19 months.
During that period, my employer (Motorola) sponsored my application for an H1-B work visa. That process took some time, but was overall predictable: I applied, waited a number of months and eventually received the visa. Part of the predictability was due to the fact that I held an advanced degree (a dedicated allocation of H1-Bs was added in 2005 specifically for applicants with advanced degrees), but more significant was the fact that that, back then, the number of H1-Bs issued each year was within striking distance of the number of applications.
That’s no longer the case.
Data from USCIS (FY 2024 is the current application year). Application totals were not published for FY 2004, 2006-7 or 2010-13.
Since I received my initial H1-B nearly 20 years ago, the number of H1-B work visas each year has remained the same.
Staying in America
For foreign workers in tech, the H1-B visa is by far the most common U.S. work visa.
As with my experience, it was historically fairly straight-forward to get: a U.S.-based employer would submit an application to “sponsor” an individual and, assuming both the individual and the sponsoring company met the application criteria, the visa would be granted. Related immigration processes were similarly straightforward:
When I left Motorola to join Aster Data, the process of “transferring” my H1-B was straightforward
When my initial 3-year visa expired and I applied for the second 3-year H1-B, the process was straightforward
When I applied for my green card during the second 3-year visa period, the process was straightforward
At no point during any of these processes was the outcome ever in doubt. (To be clear, there were variations in some of the details — for example, friends and colleagues from certain countries had more steps to go through and often had to wait longer — but even their outcomes were relatively predictable.)
But something happened over the last 20 years. America — the nation whose foundation was built on immigration — itself became anti-immigration.
As Noah Smith wrote in 2021, immigration became a cultural wedge issue.
What’s the Big Deal?
When I read a lot of the discourse over U.S. immigration policy, it’s clear that very few of the people involved in the debates have every themselves been an immigrant, nor to many of them understand the impact some of these policies have on the decisions made by individuals. There also seems to be a widespread belief that highly-skilled immigrants will always choose the U.S. over other countries because there’s such a wide gap in opportunity.
The reality is twofold:
First, the gap between the U.S. and other countries has narrowed significantly when it comes to opportunities in tech.
Second, immigrants to the U.S. are less and less likely to stay in the country for even a short period when their ability to do so long-term is at question.
Why is this a big deal?
We’ve all seen infographics showing how many CEOs and founders of U.S.-based tech companies are immigrants. Here’s a specific example from my journey: Aster Data.
This photo, taken in early 2006, is of the first 7 of us. All Stanford grads. All highly skilled. 6/7 were immigrants.
Aster Data became a $300M exit that created over 100 U.S.-based jobs and its alumni have since founded companies worth more than $10B, including Nutanix, Cohesity, ThoughtSpot and Action IQ.
And it never would have happened if the 6 of us who were immigrants didn’t have certainty of our visa paths.
Maximum Canada
While the U.S. struggles with its feelings about immigration, the rest of the world senses weakness and is attacking.
For example, Canada has been steadily increasing its immigration numbers over the past 10 years, with a target of 500,000 new immigrants in 2023. Last week, the country’s immigration minister announced new policies specifically targeting highly-skilled immigrants in the U.S., including:
An 3-year open work permit that anyone with an H1-B visa can apply for. (Unlike H1-Bs, Canada’s open work permits aren’t tied to employees, so these individuals could work for almost any employer in Canada.)
Work/study permits for spouses and dependents of H1-B holders, providing a single path for entire families to immigrate to Canada.
Changes to Canada’s startup visa that will enable entire founding teams to get 3-year work visas.
New innovation and STEM streams that will provide express entry paths for highly-skilled workers.
6-month digital nomad visas to encourage highly-skilled workers from around the world to travel to Canada.
If you compare the statements made at Collision by Canada’s immigration minister by those frequently coming from America, the contrast is clear:
“We’re enthusiastic about the ambitious goals we have set in immigration, because they aren’t just about numbers—they are strategic. With Canada’s first-ever immigration Tech Talent Strategy, we’re targeting newcomers that can help enshrine Canada as a world leader in a variety of emerging technologies. I’m grateful for the collaboration of the tech, start-up and business communities, who have provided valuable insight to develop this strategy. Having a fast and flexible approach, one that is broadly supported by Canadians, is truly Canada’s immigration advantage.”
– The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Canada hasn’t got it perfect by any means (for example, the current rate of immigration vastly outpaces the construction of new housing), but broadly speaking the approach it’s taking in pursuit of “maximum Canada” is lightyears ahead of what’s happening in the US.
Noah Smith has an excellent writeup on Canada’s nation-building strategy.
And Canada is far from alone in its enthusiastic approach to immigration.
The question is: now that the world has seen America’s achilles heel, how will it respond?
