Showing posts with label immigrants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigrants. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Technology Companies Praise Work Plan for Immigrant Students
Story first appeared on USA Today
Tech companies are giving mixed reviews to a new proposal that would help advanced-degree students in tech fields stay and work in the U.S. after they complete school.
Technology companies are praising a congressional proposal to provide a path for permanent U.S. residency to immigrants who receive master's degrees or doctorates in technical fields, but they say it would only partly solve their recruiting problems.
Under a blueprint unveiled by a bipartisan group of senators, immigrants who receive master's degrees or doctorates in science, technology, engineering or math from an American university would be awarded a green card, or permanent residency.
Currently, the U.S. places a cap of 85,000 a year on the number of three-year H-1B visas it grants to immigrants with specialized skills.
Green cards are capped at 140,000 a year. And there are separate limits on the number of workers from each country who can get green cards.
The per-country caps hampers the large numbers of high-tech workers from China and India whose quotas are reached first, say executives of Intel and Facebook.
Intel Vice President Peter Cleveland says green cards should be awarded on a first-come, first-served basis.
He says most of its new hires are foreign graduates of U.S. universities with advanced degrees. He called the Senate proposal "a very positive sign."
But he said the company already has "2,300 employees in a green card lines" who graduated in previous years and would not be affected by the more lenient stance. Employees who don't have their green cards can't be promoted and are constrained from moving to other companies.
"It's good for new graduates but (doesn't help) existing green card holders," he says.
Facebook officials say the proposal would help, but many of its new hires are from foreign universities who would not be affected.
In late 2011, the company was forced to open a new office in Dublin to accommodate nearly 80 new staffers from countries such as China, India and Singapore, says Joel Kaplan, the company's vice president of public policy.
That deprives the U.S. economy of a larger work force, disrupts the closely-knit teams that Facebook fosters and adds a major operating expense.
Even tech start-ups gave the proposal mixed reviews.
Elizabeth Stanton, founder of an online learning start-up in Palo Alto, Calif., says she has been unable to hire a 19-year-old computer science student from India under the H-1B visa program.
Criteria for qualifying for the visa should be loosened, she says.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Asian Immigrants Top in Class
Story first appeared in The Wall Street Journal.
Asians are the fastest-growing, most educated and highest-earning population in the U.S., according to a new report that paints the majority-immigrant group as a boon to an economy that has come to rely increasingly on skilled workers.
The number of Asians in the U.S. quadrupled between 1980 and 2010 to about 18 million, or 6% of the total population, according to "The Rise of Asian Americans," a study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The bulk of Asians in the U.S. trace their roots to six countries: China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam.
As a group, Asians place more value than Americans overall on marriage, parenting, hard work and careers, according to the report. Irrespective of their country of origin, Asians overall believe that American parents are too soft on their children.
They are the highly skilled workforce of the 21st century, but they also bring traditional values.
Half of Asians have a college degree, compared with 30% for all Americans, and their median annual household income is $66,000, versus $49,000 for Americans as a whole.
Asians are more likely than the overall U.S. population to be married, or to live in a multigenerational household, and their children are more likely to be raised in a two-parent home, the report says.
Asians exceed Americans on educational credentials and socioeconomic markers of success despite being predominantly first-generation immigrants. This sets Asians, three quarters of whom are foreign-born, apart from previous waves of immigrants.
Immigration from Asia has picked up in recent years, with Asians displacing Hispanics from the top spot. In 2007, about 540,000 Hispanics came to the U.S., compared with 390,000 Asians. In 2010, about 36% of new immigrants were Asian, against 31% who were Hispanic.
Economics plays a role in the shift. Hispanics, including undocumented immigrants, tend to do blue-collar jobs, and have been deterred in recent years by a slowdown in construction, as well as tighter border security. Asians, who have higher levels of education, mainly come legally on student visas or employment programs to work in sectors that are thriving, such as technology.
The Pew report says those trends should help propel the growth of the Asian population in the U.S. to 41 million in 2050, more than double its current size.
That rise can help the country forge ties with fast-growing economies such as China and India, says the first minority mayor of Bellevue, Wash.He has said that one of his goals is to promote relationship-building with China, India and Korea through the growing numbers of Asian immigrants who have settled in the city of 130,000 outside Seattle. Asians, who account for 28% of Bellevue's population, are in close contact with friends and relatives back home.
Bellevue has benefited from the newcomers. Indians have helped raise millions of dollars for a performing-arts center. A statute of Mahatma Gandhi stands outside the town library as a tribute to the community.
Much of the Asian influx has occurred since the 1990s, when technology titans such as Microsoft Corp., based in nearby Redmond, Wash., sought talent. In 2010, U.S. universities awarded 45% of all science and engineering degrees to Asians, according to the Pew study.
After earning mathematics and computer-science degrees at Eastern Michigan University, a local Chinese national worked for Microsoft and Zillow, an online real-estate firm, before starting a mobile technology company, called Propeld, in Bellevue in late 2010. Her firm's team of 10 is almost entirely Asian. She taps into a U.S. network of alumni of Tsinghua University, a prestigious Chinese institution.
The Pew study found Asians three times as likely as immigrants from other parts of the world to get U.S. permanent residency on the basis of employment rather than family ties.
An Indian physician, is among them. The ear, nose and throat specialist completed his training in the U.K. and received a green card based on his professional expertise. He opened his own practice in Cortland, N.Y., in 2007.
Three fifths of Asians say American parents don't put enough pressure on their children to succeed in school, the survey found.
Asians are the fastest-growing, most educated and highest-earning population in the U.S., according to a new report that paints the majority-immigrant group as a boon to an economy that has come to rely increasingly on skilled workers.
The number of Asians in the U.S. quadrupled between 1980 and 2010 to about 18 million, or 6% of the total population, according to "The Rise of Asian Americans," a study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. The bulk of Asians in the U.S. trace their roots to six countries: China, India, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam.
As a group, Asians place more value than Americans overall on marriage, parenting, hard work and careers, according to the report. Irrespective of their country of origin, Asians overall believe that American parents are too soft on their children.
They are the highly skilled workforce of the 21st century, but they also bring traditional values.
Half of Asians have a college degree, compared with 30% for all Americans, and their median annual household income is $66,000, versus $49,000 for Americans as a whole.
Asians are more likely than the overall U.S. population to be married, or to live in a multigenerational household, and their children are more likely to be raised in a two-parent home, the report says.
Asians exceed Americans on educational credentials and socioeconomic markers of success despite being predominantly first-generation immigrants. This sets Asians, three quarters of whom are foreign-born, apart from previous waves of immigrants.
Immigration from Asia has picked up in recent years, with Asians displacing Hispanics from the top spot. In 2007, about 540,000 Hispanics came to the U.S., compared with 390,000 Asians. In 2010, about 36% of new immigrants were Asian, against 31% who were Hispanic.
Economics plays a role in the shift. Hispanics, including undocumented immigrants, tend to do blue-collar jobs, and have been deterred in recent years by a slowdown in construction, as well as tighter border security. Asians, who have higher levels of education, mainly come legally on student visas or employment programs to work in sectors that are thriving, such as technology.
The Pew report says those trends should help propel the growth of the Asian population in the U.S. to 41 million in 2050, more than double its current size.
That rise can help the country forge ties with fast-growing economies such as China and India, says the first minority mayor of Bellevue, Wash.He has said that one of his goals is to promote relationship-building with China, India and Korea through the growing numbers of Asian immigrants who have settled in the city of 130,000 outside Seattle. Asians, who account for 28% of Bellevue's population, are in close contact with friends and relatives back home.
Bellevue has benefited from the newcomers. Indians have helped raise millions of dollars for a performing-arts center. A statute of Mahatma Gandhi stands outside the town library as a tribute to the community.
Much of the Asian influx has occurred since the 1990s, when technology titans such as Microsoft Corp., based in nearby Redmond, Wash., sought talent. In 2010, U.S. universities awarded 45% of all science and engineering degrees to Asians, according to the Pew study.
After earning mathematics and computer-science degrees at Eastern Michigan University, a local Chinese national worked for Microsoft and Zillow, an online real-estate firm, before starting a mobile technology company, called Propeld, in Bellevue in late 2010. Her firm's team of 10 is almost entirely Asian. She taps into a U.S. network of alumni of Tsinghua University, a prestigious Chinese institution.
The Pew study found Asians three times as likely as immigrants from other parts of the world to get U.S. permanent residency on the basis of employment rather than family ties.
An Indian physician, is among them. The ear, nose and throat specialist completed his training in the U.K. and received a green card based on his professional expertise. He opened his own practice in Cortland, N.Y., in 2007.
Three fifths of Asians say American parents don't put enough pressure on their children to succeed in school, the survey found.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Residents Against Detention Centers
Story first appeared in USA Today.
CRETE, Ill. – Amid the rose bushes in a local resident's yard is a sign with a red circle and a diagonal slash across the words "Crete detention center."
It conveys her opposition to a proposal to build a 788-bed, privately operated detention center for illegal immigrants in this village of 8,259 people, which is 30 miles south of Chicago. She doesn't like the idea of a private company running the place, fears property values would plummet and worries that if immigration laws were to change, Crete would be stuck with a vacant building. Local residents are opposed to making a profit off other people's suffering.
Another resident, who has lived in Crete for two decades and is unemployed, shares Pennington's concern about the effects of a possible shift in immigration laws, but he does see an upside: the promise of as many as 250 jobs, most of which would be filled by area residents.
The March unemployment rate in Will County, where Crete is located, was 9.5%, compared with the national rate of 8.2% for that month.
The planned detention center, where illegal immigrants would be held until they are deported, has caused a stir in Crete that reflects national debates over immigration policies and the growing number of people being held in for-profit prisons and jails.
The share of state and federal prisoners — not including immigration detainees — in private facilities increased from 6.3% in 2000 to 8% in 2010 for a total of 128,195, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The prospect of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operating the immigration detention facility is causing much consternation.
What this is about for us is a multibillion-dollar corporation that is trying to set up shop here in Illinois to make profits off human misery.
Centralizing detention
Illinois already prohibits privately built or operated state prisons and county jails. A bill that also would ban state and local governments from hiring private companies to build or run civil detention centers has been passed by the Illinois Senate. A House committee voted last week to send it to the full House.
The Crete proposal is part of a plan announced in 2009 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to centralize its civil detention system.
At that time, illegal immigrants were scattered in 350 facilities across the country, including county jails and other facilities meant for criminal, not civil, detention. That number has been reduced to 250, according to Raleigh Immigration Lawyers.
ICE said the Crete facility would mark another important step in the agency's long-term effort to reform the immigration detention system, emphasizing the health and safety of detainees in ICE custody.
A CCA spokesman said that the company operates more than a dozen facilities under contracts with ICE. In all, it has 67 facilities nationwide with a total of about 92,000 beds.
It should be noted that CCA has been criticized and sued for its treatment of inmates, but Owen said corrections is a highly litigious profession for public and private systems. CCA's track record shows that they do a good job of operating safe facilities. The company would spend up to $60 million to build the center, he said.
Economic development a goal
The village administrator, said the detention center proposal is being handled just as any other potential economic development project. Village officials are consulting with other communities where CCA facilities are located, researching potential liabilities and considering how the village's image might be affected.
Because the facility would be privately operated, the village would collect an estimated $236,000 in real estate taxes yearly. Before the Board of Trustees votes on the site plan and contracts with CCA and ICE, he said, public meetings would be held. Despite talk around town, it's not a done deal.
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CRETE, Ill. – Amid the rose bushes in a local resident's yard is a sign with a red circle and a diagonal slash across the words "Crete detention center."
It conveys her opposition to a proposal to build a 788-bed, privately operated detention center for illegal immigrants in this village of 8,259 people, which is 30 miles south of Chicago. She doesn't like the idea of a private company running the place, fears property values would plummet and worries that if immigration laws were to change, Crete would be stuck with a vacant building. Local residents are opposed to making a profit off other people's suffering.
Another resident, who has lived in Crete for two decades and is unemployed, shares Pennington's concern about the effects of a possible shift in immigration laws, but he does see an upside: the promise of as many as 250 jobs, most of which would be filled by area residents.
The March unemployment rate in Will County, where Crete is located, was 9.5%, compared with the national rate of 8.2% for that month.
The planned detention center, where illegal immigrants would be held until they are deported, has caused a stir in Crete that reflects national debates over immigration policies and the growing number of people being held in for-profit prisons and jails.
The share of state and federal prisoners — not including immigration detainees — in private facilities increased from 6.3% in 2000 to 8% in 2010 for a total of 128,195, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The prospect of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) operating the immigration detention facility is causing much consternation.
What this is about for us is a multibillion-dollar corporation that is trying to set up shop here in Illinois to make profits off human misery.
Centralizing detention
Illinois already prohibits privately built or operated state prisons and county jails. A bill that also would ban state and local governments from hiring private companies to build or run civil detention centers has been passed by the Illinois Senate. A House committee voted last week to send it to the full House.
The Crete proposal is part of a plan announced in 2009 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to centralize its civil detention system.
At that time, illegal immigrants were scattered in 350 facilities across the country, including county jails and other facilities meant for criminal, not civil, detention. That number has been reduced to 250, according to Raleigh Immigration Lawyers.
ICE said the Crete facility would mark another important step in the agency's long-term effort to reform the immigration detention system, emphasizing the health and safety of detainees in ICE custody.
A CCA spokesman said that the company operates more than a dozen facilities under contracts with ICE. In all, it has 67 facilities nationwide with a total of about 92,000 beds.
It should be noted that CCA has been criticized and sued for its treatment of inmates, but Owen said corrections is a highly litigious profession for public and private systems. CCA's track record shows that they do a good job of operating safe facilities. The company would spend up to $60 million to build the center, he said.
Economic development a goal
The village administrator, said the detention center proposal is being handled just as any other potential economic development project. Village officials are consulting with other communities where CCA facilities are located, researching potential liabilities and considering how the village's image might be affected.
Because the facility would be privately operated, the village would collect an estimated $236,000 in real estate taxes yearly. Before the Board of Trustees votes on the site plan and contracts with CCA and ICE, he said, public meetings would be held. Despite talk around town, it's not a done deal.
For more national and worldwide related business news, visit the Peak News Room blog.
For local and Michigan business related news, visit the Michigan Business News blog.
For healthcare and medical related news, visit the Healthcare and Medical blog.
For law related news, visit the Nation of Law blog.
For real estate and home related news, visit the Commercial and Residential Real Estate blog.
For technology and electronics related news, visit the Electronics America blog.
For organic SEO and web optimization related news, visit the SEO Done Right blog.
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