All posts by TheVisaCoach

US v Australia Immigration: Green Cards & Permanent Residency

Green Card & Citizenship, , , , , ,

It is no surprise to regular readers that we have harped on in recent months in light of the US Immigration Reform bill now which has passed the Senate (albeit stalled in the House of Representatives) about the ills of the Immigration system, the state of Immigration today, general statistical trends as well as comparisons to other countries and how much this is hurting the US economy at large.

Well we recently came across a great infographic comparing US and Australian immigration and the access to Permanent Residency that crystalizes simply the problem that exists today. Both countries are modern western countries with high standards of living, high level GDP per capita and huge diversity in the populace due to the founding and growth of the respective countries fueled by global immigration.

However there are a couple of major differences. While proportionally Australia has a higher foreign born and immigrant population it is only a nation of 23 million vs. 315 million in the US. Despite that the amount of Permanent Residency approvals (often called Green Cards in the US) for employment based or skilled based reasons is almost the same annually. Australia has about 129,000 vs. the US having 140,000.

US v Australia Immigration Permanent Residency

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(courtesy Tatiana Galzy – Fi2W is featuring stories by students in the Feet in 2 Worlds journalism course at The New School)

The major reason for this disparity is the fact Australia issues 40% of all Permanent Residents for skilled employment reasons thus having a net positive to the economy. However the US only issues 7% of all Green Cards for the same group and only 4.3% are the cream of the crop high skilled or vastly experienced professionals.

Why is this a problem?

Well to keep with the simplicity of the article, we present a last image to leave you with. If the Top 500 Immigrant founded US companies (an Immigrant Fortune 500 if you will) were an economy unto themselves, they would be the 9th largest economy in the world. And that is only from direct economic benefit not counting indirect benefit such as the flow on effect to other industries and companies as well as what their combined 3.6 million employees further do with their salaries. To put that into perspective that is bigger than the economies of Russia or Canada as a whole at 1.7 Trillion USD.

Infographic-immigrants-in-500s-v3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(courtesy Tatiana Galzy)

So the next time someone has an argument with you about US Immigration policy and wanting it to be more conservative and your reasoned verbal and written arguments don’t work, it may be these 2 simple charts that paint the best and clearest picture.

Cj

US Immigration Reform: Senate Approves Bill

Immigration News, , , , , ,

We have had an interesting last 10 days or so primarily coming out of Washington DC for US Immigration.

US Senate Approval 68-32

Firstly the US Senate, suspended their usually dithering and lack of a work ethic to actually debate, vote and amazingly pass a piece of legislation. What is more it is for comprehensive immigration reform which is a net positive for the US and actually addresses a lot of what is wrong with the current immigration system.

The fact that this measure passed 68-32 meaning there was a lot of bi-partisan support for the bill suggests for the first time in a while the country, or at least some of its elected officials, can come together to make an adult decision. The reality is for Democratic Senators their major focus on the illegal immigrant side of this reform and to a lesser extent appeasing the tech industry who is a big portion of their donor bases and for the Republican Senators a thought to address their growing irrelevance with the rising Hispanic voting bloc and spend evermore money on a border fence is the true selfish reasons these Senators supported this bill. However at the end of the day we are all operating in a quid pro quo way in our daily lives so can’t expect better from our elected officials and at least in this case the outcome is potentially positive.

However this is not the the end of the battle for US Immigration Reform as it now travels to the House of Representatives before it gets to President Obama to be signed into law. The Republican Majority House with a vocal minority adamantly disagreeing with portions of the bill related to pathways to citizenship for illegal immigrants, lack of further efforts in border security and some also wanting stricter caps on visa like the H-1B visa rather than increases means that the bill has a long way to go.

Additionally people from Speaker John Boehner to other major figures have said even if it gets done it prob will take till the end of the year. More likely if US Immigration reform has a chance of passing a milder version of the bill will pass the House and it will go into a conference session with the US Senate to have a compromised bill go the White House for signature. So maybe right now we can say we are 40% there..which is prob 39% closer than we have been to Immigration reform in 30 years.

Cj