Many skilled foreigners leaving U.S.

The Raleigh N.C. News & Observer reported on the current situation for skilled immigration to the U.S.

When the Senate immigration bill fell apart last week, it did more than stymie efforts to deal with illegal immigration.

It derailed efforts to deal with an equally vexing business concern: a backlog in applications for so-called green cards, the coveted cards that are actually pink or white and that offer proof of lawful permanent residency.

When they club legal skilled immigration reforms with controversial illegal immigration issues, you know it's as good as flipping a coin to see if the measures go through. It only increases the frustration level as you see poeple being polarized to side with the bill and illegal immigration or against it. Everyone agrees legal immigration is required and important but they're not willing to separate it out from the illegal immigration reform and fix it.

Lately, this has prompted an exodus of foreign workers who [are] tired of waiting, to return home or go further afield. With the economies in Asia and elsewhere on the rise, they can easily find work in the native countries or in third nations that are more generous with their visas. Mike Plueddeman said he lost three employees (one a senior programmer with a doctorate) at Durham-based DynPro in the past two years because they [were] tired of waiting for their green cards.

As I said earlier, 30,000 Indian IT pros have returned to the booming Indian economy, most of them left after being tired of the hopeless U.S. immigration system. Add to that the numbers that are leaving to countries like Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Dubai (U.A.E.) and you realize the U.S. is loosing it's appeal among global talent pool.

Sarath Chandrand, 44, a software consultant from India, moved with his wife and two young daughters from Raleigh to Toronto in December because he couldn't live with more uncertainty. Canada won him over because its residency process takes only a year and a half and doesn't require sponsorship from an employer.

New Zealand, with a population of 4 million, has received more than 1,900 applications from skilled migrants and their families in the past two years, said Don Badman, the Los Angeles marketing director for that country's immigration agency. Of those, about 17 percent were non-Americans working in the United States.

Any of you folks out there in India, China, Philipines, Brazil, Ireland, Russia or other emerging economies, please consider these developments before you decide to come to U.S. The global economy is truly taking shape and its in your best interest to not blindly follow the throngs of earlier immigrants who chose U.S.