When Masahiro Tanaka takes the mound this week in his major league debut, Yankees fans will have more than the club’s front office to thank for bringing the Japanese-born pitcher to the team. Absent special US visas catered to foreign athletes, Tanaka and many other elite baseball players would never make it stateside.
Immigration laws give foreign-born pro athletes relatively easy access to work in the United States. The O-1A non-immigrant-visa program lets people of “extraordinary ability or achievement,” including top athletes, work here on a temporary basis. These visas are good for up to three years, extendable in one-year increments. The similar P-1A visa program for “internationally recognized athletes” allows those who qualify to compete here for up to five years.
In fact, about one in every four players on this year’s Opening Day rosters was born outside the United States. Although the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants have the most foreign-born players of any Major League squad, the Yankees have also accumulated a diverse pool of talent. Three starting pitchers — 60 percent of the rotation — were born outside the United States (Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda and Ivan Nova). And with nearly half of all minor league players hailing from abroad, the message is clear: International talent is vital for sustained competitiveness.
If only ordinary businesses could be so lucky.
Forty percent of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or first-generation Americans. A disproportionate share of US small-business owners are immigrants. Immigrants are more than twice as likely as native-born Americans to receive and commercialize a patent. Notwithstanding such a track record, our nation’s antiquated immigration system inhibits many companies from hiring the best and brightest minds from around the world.
O-1A and P-1A visas are for athletes; the equivalent for non-athletes is the H1-B visa for high-skilled workers. Foreigners who qualify for H1-Bs are exactly the type of workers the country needs, the all-stars of their industries.
While the H1-B visa program lets some of these high-skilled immigrants come and thrive here, it’s entirely inadequate to meet the needs of the US economy. The biggest flaw is the annual cap — now 65,000 visas a year, plus up to 20,000 more for foreigners with master’s degrees.
Last year, it took just a week after the opening of the filing period on H1-B applications to meet the cap. Similar demand is expected again this year, meaning thousands of qualified immigrants will be turned away.
These laws make it harder for US firms to compete with businesses around the world that are free to recruit and hire top talent, regardless of nationality. To return to the baseball analogy, it’s akin to letting National League teams sign international talent but restricting American League clubs to just native-born players. The World Series would be a lot less dramatic.
Reform is desperately needed. The good news? When it comes to high-skilled immigration, improvement is straightforward: Just remove the cap on H1-B visas entirely.
The immigration overhaul passed by the Senate last June would raise but not end the cap on H1-B visas. Arguably the most important improvement the House could make to the bill would be to totally remove the cap.
There is historical precedent. After all, there was no annual cap on temporary high-skilled workers at all until Congress imposed one in the Immigration Act of 1990. Since then, lawmakers have from time to time increased the cap, bumping the maximum as high as 195,000 for fiscal years 2001-03. Yet since 2004, despite high demand for skilled workers, the cap has remained back at its original 65,000 limit, albeit with some new exemptions added.
With an economy that increasingly relies on technically-trained workers, the damage of capping H1-B visas is more evident every day.
The US economy has struggled to regain its footing after the financial crisis of 2008. But slow growth doesn’t have to be “the new normal.” One big step to faster growth is reforming outdated immigration policies so that America can welcome innovative immigrants to its soil.
Immigrants enhance competitiveness. Baseball understands this: The sport is a melting pot for top talent from around the world, and Americans like the result. Immigration law should allow the US economy to be more like baseball.
Machir Stull manages the economic-growth initiative at the George W. Bush Institute. Matthew Denhart is the executive director of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation.