abhay (01/12/83)
There was a an immigration reform bill before the last congress. It was passed by senate with 80+ votes in favor, but the bill died in the house of representatives due to intense lobbying by the labor and the minorities. One aspect of the bill of special interest was the requirement that all foreign students return to their countries for at least two years before being eligible to apply for permanent residency to US. At the present time over 90% of foreign engineering students (specially from taiwan phillipines india & other asian countries) end up staying in US permanently. This provision was vehemently opposed by industry group citing shortage of engineers and they did succeed in watering down the provision to exempt engineering students. I wonder if many of engineers are aware of it what is their opinion on this issue as to if the shortage is real, are foreign engineers depressing salaries by aggreeing to work for less so that they can get immigration and is this a good provision. Opinion of alien engineers will definitely be biased therefore please indicate so.
ltn (01/14/83)
Most of the foreign engineering (or pure science students, for that matter) that I knew in college were quite good. This probably has something to do with other countries only sending their best students to the U.S. (By the way, I went to a school which is regarded as perhaps the best science school in the country. It gets the best U.S. high school grads each year, and even there, the foreign students seemed to be better than average.) It may also be that they are worried about not doing well and having to leave the U.S. In any case, they are good, so this country will benefit if they stay here to work. Les Niles, Bell Labs Murray Hill (aluxz!ltn)