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70–576 PDF 2011

‘‘STEM’’ THE TIDE: SHOULD AMERICA TRY TO 

PREVENT AN EXODUS OF FOREIGN GRADUATES 

OF U.S. UNIVERSITIES WITH ADVANCED 

SCIENCE DEGREES? 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

IMMIGRATION POLICY AND ENFORCEMENT 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 5, 2011 

Serial No. 112–64 

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas, Chairman 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio 

TED POE, Texas 

JASON CHAFFETZ, Utah 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS ROSS, Florida 

SANDY ADAMS, Florida 

BEN QUAYLE, Arizona 

MARK AMODEI, Nevada 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HENRY C. ‘‘HANK’’ JOHNSON, JR., 

Georgia 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois 

JUDY CHU, California 

TED DEUTCH, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

[Vacant] 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Majority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

PERRY APELBAUM, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION POLICY AND ENFORCEMENT

ELTON GALLEGLY, California, Chairman 

STEVE KING, Iowa, Vice-Chairman 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

TREY GOWDY, South Carolina 

DENNIS ROSS, Florida 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

PEDRO R. PIERLUISI, Puerto Rico 

GEORGE FISHMAN, Chief Counsel 

DAVID SHAHOULIAN, Minority Counsel 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

OCTOBER 5, 2011 

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Elton Gallegly, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and 

Enforcement .......................................................................................................... 1 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy 

and Enforcement .................................................................................................. 2 

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................................... 4 

WITNESSES 

Darla Whitaker, Senior Vice President for Worldwide Human Resources, 

Texas Instruments 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 6 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 8 

Vivek Wadhwa, Director of Research, Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 17 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 21 

B. Lindsay Lowell, Ph.D., Director of Policy Studies, Institute for the Study 

of International Migration, Georgetown University 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 28 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31 

Barmak Nassirian, Associate Executive Director, American Association of 

Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 38 

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 41 

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Material submitted by Darla Whitaker, Senior Vice President for Worldwide 

Human Resources, Texas Instruments .............................................................. 44 

Material submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee 

on Immigration Policy and Enforcement ........................................................... 48 

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement .......................................................................... 119 

Prepared Statement of Compete America ............................................................. 126 

Prepared Statement of Partnership for a New American Economy .................... 128 

Letter from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America ........... 131 

Prepared Statement of IEEE-HSA ......................................................................... 140 

Letter from NAFSA: Association of International Educators .............................. 144 

(1) 

‘‘STEM’’ THE TIDE: SHOULD AMERICA TRY TO 

PREVENT AN EXODUS OF FOREIGN GRADUATES OF U.S. UNIVERSITIES WITH ADVANCED SCIENCE DEGREES? 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION

POLICY AND ENFORCEMENT, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:52 p.m., in room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Elton Gallegly 

(Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gallegly, Smith, King, Poe, Gowdy, 

Ross, Lofgren, Conyers, Jackson Lee, and Waters. 

Also Present: Representative Griffin. 

Staff Present: (Majority) George Fishman, Subcommittee Chief 

Counsel; Marian White, Clerk; and (Minority) Hunter Hammill, 

USCIS Detailee. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The hearing will come to order. 

America has many of the finest universities in the world. Talented students from around the globe seek to come here to pursue 

their studies. The State Department issued an all-time high of over 

400,000 new student visas in the year 2010. Foreign students can 

enrich our universities, and after they graduate many stay here as 

workers to help American businesses grow. 

Among the cream of the crop are those foreign students who receive advanced degrees in what are known as STEM fields: science, 

technology, engineering, and math. One of our witnesses today, 

Darla Whitaker of Texas Instruments, will testify as to how these 

foreign STEM graduates keep American companies on the cutting 

edge. They can also give America a competitive advantage. A number of studies have found a remarkable level of entrepreneurship 

among immigrant scientists and engineers. 

When foreign STEM students graduate, many want to stay in 

the U.S., at least temporarily. However, according to a survey by 

Vivek Wadhwa, who will be testifying today, most students who 

would like to stay are concerned about finding jobs in the U.S. and 

obtaining work visas. Their anxiety is surely due to our depressed 

economy, the shortage of H-1B visas during boom times, and the 

waiting list for employment-based green cards, which seems to 

grow during good times and bad. 

2 

This issue raises some important questions, including: Should we 

desire that all these foreign graduates remain in the U.S.? Should 

we encourage them to stay by enacting visa reform? These are the 

subjects of today’s hearings. 

Mr. Wadhwa worries that the departure of these foreign graduates would represent a significant loss for the U.S. science and engineering workforce, in which immigrants have played increasingly 

larger roles over the last three decades. 

However, one thing to keep in mind is how American students 

are impacted by our immigration policies. Another of our witnesses 

today, Lindsay Lowell, worries that depressed wages and discouraged workers result if supply outstrips demand. He writes that 

‘‘highly qualified American students may choose a non-STEM job 

because it pays better and offers a more stable professional career.’’ 

And another of today’s witnesses, Barmak Nassirian, worries 

that a systemic threat to academic integrity has emerged in the 

form of questionable schools that have managed to establish eligibility for participation in Federal student aid as collegiate institutions. Could such schools take advantage of any decision by Congress to increase the availability of visas or foreign students graduating with STEM degrees? 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and their diverse and valuable perspectives in today’s hearing. 

And, with that, I would yield to the Ranking Member, my friend 

from California, Ms. Lofgren. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Without a doubt, our country came to be the greatest on the 

planet in less than 200 years due to its unique ability to attract 

the best and brightest minds from around the world and have them 

become Americans. The fact that we became the strongest economic 

and military power on Earth was not fate; it wasn’t an entitlement; 

it wasn’t just given to us. It was earned. It was earned by opening 

our arms to the world’s political and intellectual refugees, by giving 

them the freedom to take risks and to own their own accomplishments, and by having a national identity that welcomed the ‘‘other’’ 

to quickly see himself or herself as one of us, as American. 

These national qualities ensured that we were on the right side 

of the global brain drain that has been occurring for the last two 

centuries. But today we find ourselves on the other side of the 

drain. While we once asked the brightest minds in the world to 

come and make their homes here, we now turn them away. Having 

educated and trained the world’s best students in our universities, 

we no longer welcome them to enrich this Nation. 

To those immigrants who want to start businesses in the United 

States and create jobs here, we tell you to go home. Our system has 

no visas for you; you are not welcome, so please start your business 

someplace else. 

To the growing number of immigrants with advanced degrees 

from U.S. universities in science, technology, engineering, and 

mathematics who want to innovate and incubate new ideas here, 

we say that you, too, are not welcome. Our system is out of green 

cards for the next 10 to 70 years; you will have to wait a long time 

if you want to make a life here. 

3 

The result has been a reverse brain drain, and we have reason 

to fear it. 

Over the last 30 years, advanced degrees issued by U.S. universities in STEM fields have been increasingly earned by foreign students. In 2009, half to two-thirds of all Ph.D.s in physics, computer 

science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, and chemical engineering were earned by foreign students. And at the master’s degree level, the numbers are similar, with almost half of all 

engineering and computer science degrees earned by foreign students. 

And, until recently, the foreign students I just mentioned have 

had a profound impact on the U.S. economy and job creation in 

America. Immigrants were responsible for one-quarter of all engineering and technology startups created in the United States between 1995 and 2005. The vast majority of these immigrants had 

advanced STEM degrees, mainly from United States universities. 

More than half of the startups in Silicon Valley, my home, had immigrant founders. 

Immigrants were named as inventors or co-inventors in onequarter of international patent applications filed from our country 

in 2006. Due partly to immigration, our country, with just 5 percent of world’s population, employs nearly one-third of the world’s 

scientific and engineering researchers, accounts for 40 percent of 

all R&D spending, and publishes 35 percent of all science and engineering articles. 

This leadership in science and technology, according to the National Academies, has translated into rising standards of living for 

all Americans, with technology improvements accounting for up to 

half of GDP growth and at least two-thirds of productivity growth 

since 1946. This is because, according to the Academies, ‘‘while 

only 4 percent of the Nation’s workforce is composed of scientists 

and engineers, this group disproportionately creates jobs for the 

other 96 percent.’’ 

Let’s throw another statistic into the mix. A recent report by the 

Partnership for a New American Economy, a bipartisan group of 

businesses founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg 

and the News Corporation’s CEO, Rupert Murdoch, found that 

more than 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by 

immigrants or their children. These companies currently generate 

$4.2 trillion in revenues each year. 

Now, all these statistics make clear that we must find a way to 

keep more of these minds in America. In 2005, at the request of 

Congress, the National Academies issued a very sobering report on 

the country’s eroding economic leadership in science and technology. The Academies reviewed trends across the globe and found 

that, due in part to restrictive immigration policies, the scientific 

and technological building blocks critical to our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering 

strength. According to the report, although many people assume 

that the U.S. will always be a world leader in science and technology, this may not continue to be the case, inasmuch as great 

minds and ideas exist throughout the world. ‘‘We fear the abruptness,’’ they said, ‘‘with which a lead in science and technology can 

4 

be lost and the difficulty of recovering the lead, once lost—if, indeed, it can be regained at all.’’ 

Earlier this year, I introduced H.R. 2161, the IDEA Act of 2011, 

to attempt to solve these problems in a holistic fashion. The bill 

seeks to find the right balance of increasing and improving the 

education of American students in STEM fields and providing 

green cards to foreign-born innovators, entrepreneurs, and job creators who will help keep America at the top of the heap in science 

and technology. I only raise the IDEA Act to show that we can 

solve these problems in a way that creates jobs in America, protects American students and workers, and incentivizes them to increasingly enter STEM fields for the jobs of tomorrow. 

America’s great advantage in the global economy has long been 

our extraordinary ability to innovate and incubate new ideas and 

technologies. And this history of innovation was built both by harnessing native-born, homegrown talent and fostering and welcoming the best and brightest immigrants from around the world 

who want to come and be Americans here. We must find a way to 

regain that balance. 

And I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. I thank the gentlelady. 

The gentleman from Texas, the Chairman of the full Committee, 

Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

When it comes to STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, 

and math—American universities truly set the gold standard. 

STEM graduates of our universities are behind many of the innovations and new businesses that are part of our present and future 

economic growth. 

Talented students from around the world contribute to the graduate STEM programs of our universities. In 2009, foreign students 

received nearly 4 out of every 10 master’s degrees awarded in 

STEM fields and about the same percentage of all doctorates. 

These students have the potential to come up with an invention 

that could save thousands of lives or jump-start a whole new industry. They also have the ability to start a company that could provide jobs to tens of thousands of American workers. 

But what happens to these foreign students after they graduate? 

They are in great demand by the universities themselves and by 

American industries. That is why more than 6 out of every 10 

science and engineering doctoral graduates from 2002 were still 

here in 2007. 

However, our immigration system does not always put American 

interests first. We have the most generous level of legal immigration in the world. Yet we select only 5 percent of our immigrants 

based on the skills and education they bring to America. 

Many people make a compelling argument: Why don’t we simply 

offer a green card to any foreign student who graduates from a 

U.S. university with an advanced STEM degree and wants to stay 

in the U.S.? After all, why would we want to educate scientists and 

engineers here and then send them home to work for our competitors? 

But we should keep several points in mind. First, all graduate 

degrees are not the same. It takes an average of over 7 years in 

5 

graduate school for STEM students to receive a doctorate. A master’s can be earned in 2 years. 

And when it comes to the proportion of persons who have applied 

for patents, those with doctorates far outpace those with bachelor’s 

and master’s degrees. Sixteen percent of scientists and engineers 

with doctorates working in STEM fields have applied for patents, 

compared to only 2 percent with bachelor’s degrees and 5 percent 

with master’s degrees. 

Second, a visa ‘‘pot of gold’’ could create an incentive for schools 

to aim solely to attract tuition-paying foreign students with the 

lure of a green card. 

As the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Visa Services at 

the State Department has warned, ‘‘A school in the United States 

can be found for even the poorest academic achiever. Unfortunately, schools that actively recruit foreign students for primarily 

economic reasons and without regard to their qualifications or intentions, may encourage such high-risk underachievers to seek student-visa status as a ticket into the United States.’’ 

And the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings warns 

against, ‘‘inducing the enrollment of poor-quality foreign students 

in U.S. higher education institutions simply to obtain green cards.’’ 

However, the choice between sending all graduates home and 

automatically issuing visas to students are not the only options 

available. In 2009, foreign students earned about 11,000 doctorate 

degrees in STEM fields from U.S universities. With tweaks to our 

immigration system, we can accommodate those graduates whom 

American universities and businesses most desire and who are 

most able to contribute to our economy. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. I thank the gentleman. 

We have a very distinguished panel of witnesses today. 

Each of the witnesses’ written statements will be entered into 

the record in its entirety. I would respectfully request that each of 

the witnesses summarize his or her testimony in 5 minutes so we 

can get on with the questions and answers. 

Sorry that we got a little bit late start. We had an overlap with 

a markup in another Committee, and that is unavoidable sometimes, unfortunately. 

Our first witness today is Darla Whitaker. Ms. Whitaker is senior vice president responsible for worldwide human resources at 

Texas Instruments, whose incorporated headquarters are in Dallas, 

Texas. Ms. Whitaker has held various positions in human resources 

for Texas Instruments. Prior to her current assignment, Ms. 

Whitaker was vice president and manager of compensation and 

human resource systems and services for the company. She is a 

graduate of Southern Methodist University and earned an MBA 

from the University of Dallas. 

Our second witness is Mr. Vivek Wadhwa. He is a visiting scholar at the University of California-Berkley, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School, and director of research at the Center 

for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke 

University. He is also a faculty member and advisor for Singularity 

University and columnist for The Washington Post and Bloomberg 

Business Week. He received his bachelor’s degree from the UniverVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:49 Dec 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\100511\70576.000 HJUD1 PsN: 70576
6 

sity of Canberra in Australia and received his MBA from New York 

University’s Stern School of Business. 

Our third witness, Dr. Lindsay Lowell, is director of policy studies for the Institute for the Study of International Migration at 

Georgetown University. He was previously director of research at 

the congressionally appointed Commission on Immigration Reform. 

He was also assistant director for the Mexico/U.S. Binational Study 

of Migration. His research interests center on immigration policy, 

labor force, economic development, and the global mobility of the 

highly skilled. He received his Ph.D. In sociology as a demographer 

for Brown University. 

And our fourth witness, Mr. Barmak Nassirian, is associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars 

and Admissions Officers, a nonprofit association of more than 2,300 

institutions of higher education. Mr. Nassirian has been active in 

higher education policy for nearly two decades, focusing on access 

and financing issues, educational privacy, and Federal regulations. 

So, with that, we will start our testimony from our distinguished 

witnesses with Ms. Whitaker. 

Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF DARLA WHITAKER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT 

FOR WORLDWIDE HUMAN RESOURCES, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS 

Ms. WHITAKER. Thank you, Chairman Gallegly, Ranking Member 

Lofgren, Chairman Smith, and Members of the Subcommittee. I am 

Darla Whitaker. I am senior vice president of human resources for 

Texas Instruments. Thank you for inviting me to speak today about 

how best to retain the talent of U.S. university graduates holding 

advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math— 

the STEM fields. 

While many people think of calculators when they think of TI, 

our primary business is to design and manufacture semiconductors 

or chips. We are, in fact, the world’s third-largest semiconductor 

company. Texas Instruments is a global company with operations 

in more than 30 countries and approximately 34,500 employees 

worldwide and 10,400 in Texas. And with our recent acquisition of 

National Semiconductor, we now have a bigger footprint in the Silicon Valley as well. 

Innovation is the cornerstone of our company. Over the last 3 

years alone, we have invested $5 billion in research and development. Texas Instruments has over 60,000 products and releases approximately 900 new products each year. And our engineers have 

developed more than 38,000 patents issued worldwide. 

TI is fundamentally a company of engineers and scientists. Electrical engineers, in particular, are the lifeblood of our industry; 

they are our innovators. To find those innovators, TI recruits heavily at top U.S. universities, and our goal is to hire and retain the 

best engineers and innovators from U.S. universities. We choose 

the best, the brightest, and the most creative engineering graduates. 

In the past two decades, we have seen some alarming trends. 

While the vast majority of BSEEs graduating from U.S. universities are American citizens, the numbers are significantly different 

at the graduate level. The majority of those graduating from U.S. 

7 

universities with advanced degrees in electrical engineering are 

foreign nationals. Of EEs graduating from U.S. universities with 

master’s degrees, 55 percent are foreign nationals, and with Ph.D.s 

it is 63 percent. 

TI doesn’t choose this pool of graduates, but we do recruit from 

it. And we have also provided you some charts so you can see with 

this information just the breadth of the challenge that we face. 

We want innovators to join our company, not on a temporary 

basis, but as permanent employees to provide long-term value to 

our shareholders, our customers, and the community. The immigration system allocates insufficient numbers to allow engineers and 

innovators to secure green cards in a reasonable amount of time. 

Some of our employees have to wait a decade to get their green 

cards. 

This is not sustainable. It hurts our company and our industry, 

and it places burdens and stresses on our employees. It harms 

American competitiveness, as other countries move to provide easier paths to permanent residents for STEM graduates. 

But it is also easily fixable. By modestly increasing green card 

numbers to allow employers to sponsor graduates of U.S. universities holding advanced degrees in STEM fields, Congress would 

vastly improve American competitiveness and secure our place as 

the world’s innovation leader. This view is also shared by the 

IEEE-USA, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers. 

It is imperative that the increase not only include Ph.D. graduates but master’s STEM graduates as well. Among our foreign nationals who would qualify under a STEM bill, the ratio of master’s 

level engineers to Ph.D. engineers is more than four to one. While 

more Ph.D.s may have their names on our 38,000 patents, much 

of the work is done in collaboration with our engineers with master’s degrees. 

And many master’s degrees holders generate patents on their 

own. For example, Sameer Pendharkar, a fellow in our Analog 

Technology Development group, has a master’s in electrical engineering, and he has contributed 50 patents to TI. A few years ago, 

he was recognized by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering, and 

Science of Texas as a recipient of the prestigious Edith and Peter 

O’Donnell Award, established to acknowledge achievements by 

young researchers in these disciplines. And we have many other 

examples. 

TI is focused on increasing the pipeline of American-born students receiving engineering degrees. That is why we are so passionate about university funding and STEM education. STEM education is our top philanthropic priority. In the past 5 years, we 

have invested more than $150 million through TI and the TI Foundation to support education in the K-through-12 and university levels. Our focus is on improving student achievement, teacher effectiveness, and attracting more and under-represented groups to 

STEM fields. I have submitted a more comprehensive summary of 

our activities in this area for the record. 

At TI, we know that having the best innovators is the foundation 

of our success and the success of the entire semiconductor industry. 

Thank you for your time and your attention and for the opporVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:49 Dec 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\100511\70576.000 HJUD1 PsN: 70576
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tunity to speak today on this important subject, and I look forward 

to answering any questions that you have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Whitaker follows:] 


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ATTACHMENT 


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Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Ms. Whitaker. 

Mr. Wadhwa? 

TESTIMONY OF VIVEK WADHWA, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH, 

CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND RESEARCH COMMERCIALIZATION 

Mr. WADHWA. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. 


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18 

I am an Indian immigrant who arrived to the United States in 

1980. I came here to study; that is what my motivation was to 

come to America. Eventually, I ended up catching the entrepreneurial bug that infects many Americans and became an entrepreneur. I founded two companies which employed hundreds of 

Americans and made American industry more productive. 

Later in my career, I decided to switch gears and become an academic. This was my way of giving back to this great country. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. I am sorry, Mr. Wadhwa, could you pull the 

microphone a little closer? 

Mr. WADHWA. All right. Should I start again, or did you hear 

what I—— 

Mr. GALLEGLY. And the light is on. Okay. That is fine. Thank 

you. 

Mr. WADHWA. Thank you. 

So, anyway, after having been an entrepreneur, I became an academic. That was my way of giving back to America. This country 

had done so much for me that I wanted to contribute back. 

And as an academic at Duke University, I started researching 

globalization, what is happening abroad. In a nutshell, my research 

has shown me that we are totally out of touch with the realities 

of the world; that America relies upon academics to do research 

studies. What do academics do? They look at data that the government puts out and analyze them in 50 different ways and put out 

academic studies. And they publish more academic studies based 

on what other academics have done. 

That is not the reality. If you want to know what is happening 

abroad, you have to go to other countries, you have to go to India 

and China, you have to hang out with students, you have to hang 

out with entrepreneurs, you have to hang out and understand what 

is happening there. And that is what I have been doing most recently. 

I was at Tsinghua University 2 weeks ago teaching Chinese students about entrepreneurship. I went there on behalf of U.C.- 

Berkeley. And I have been going to China for the last 5 or 6 years 

quite regularly. And I have been going to India, as well. I was 

blown away with how much has changed over the last 5 years. 

These students were just like the students I teach at Stanford, 

Berkeley, Duke, and the other universities I give lectures at. They 

are exactly the same as we are. They are not burdened by the past. 

They think like we do. They want to be like us. 

I asked the students how many of them wanted to come and 

study in America. The majority of them do. I asked them how 

many of them wanted to stay in America. None of them did. And 

when I asked them why, it was all of them have heard horror stories from their friends who came back from America about the fact 

that they couldn’t get visas and that employers wouldn’t look at 

them because they couldn’t—so they couldn’t get jobs. They have 

gone back and have changed the mindset of students over there. 

It is the same in the USA. I teach at the Duke Master of Engineering Management program, some of the finest in the country. 

I used to ask students, when I joined Duke University, what their 

intention was about staying here. When I would ask them, how 

many of you plan to stay, nearly everyone would raise their hands. 

19 

I ask the same questions to these students every time I visit Duke 

now, and they ask me, well, what do you mean, Professor, ‘‘stay’’? 

I said, well, do you want to become an American? They sort of 

laugh at me, and they wonder what I am talking about. And they 

also ask why, when the opportunities are so much greater for them 

back home, that they can get better jobs, they feel wanted, and 

there are great opportunities for them back in their home countries. 

So while we sit here and debate whether we want these kids, 

they are sort of wondering, you know, why should they even stay, 

because there are so many great opportunities back for them at 

home. 

If you read academic reports, they talk about all the hurdles to 

entrepreneurship in India and China—again, totally out of touch 

with reality. You have to go to Beijing or Bangalore or Shanghai 

and hang out in the Internet cafes over there, hang out in the coffee shops, and see what happens over there. It is the same vitality, 

the same energy you see in Silicon Valley. These kids are buzzing 

with activity. They want to change the world. They have learned 

from us our best—the way we think, the way we do business, and 

they are trying to be like us. 

Now, the big thing that happened in India and China over the 

last 5 years is that there was a flood of returnees going back home. 

Tens of thousands of really bright Americans—sorry, American immigrants who went back because they had to. They were stuck in 

limbo or they saw greater opportunities back home. They have gone 

back to India and China and changed the culture over there. They 

have now taught the locals all about the American ways, and they 

built the ecosystem so that entrepreneurship is flourishing in those 

countries. So we are losing out here. 

My research team has documented a lot of the stats that Representative Lofgren cited. For example, we documented that 52 percent of startups in Silicon Valley are founded by immigrants. We 

also looked at the backlog in the visa system. You know, we keep 

focusing on the illegal, undocumented workers that came to America, the 12 million, 10 million, whatever the number might be. We 

don’t seem to be aware of the fact that there are 1 million skilled 

immigrants in the United States who are here legally—doctors, scientists, researchers, academics, who are here legally, who are stuck 

in limbo. There are no visas for them. 

Indeed, Stuart Anderson published a report today which shows 

that the backlog for Indians right now is 70 years. So my Duke 

Master of Engineering Management students who graduate today, 

if they file for a green card, it will take them 70 years, the rest 

of their lives, to get residence. So why should they even consider 

staying over here? 

So what is happening is that we have a massive reverse outflow. 

The government data does not show it. In fact, there was a joke 

of a paper by the National Science Foundation which compared the 

stay rates of Ph.D.s in 2002 to 2004, and they said, hey, there is 

no problem, we are in great shape. But what they don’t seem to 

realize is that we are looking at the batch of 1994, people who 

came in 1994 when America was the land of opportunity. I came 

here in 1990, when this was the only land of opportunity. There 

20 

was nothing else in the world but America. So we are looking back 

20 years and saying, everything is okay. 

We keep looking at all these numbers, as my colleague is going 

to do, and we say, you know, we are in great shape, just close the 

doors, we don’t need more engineers and scientists. We are out of 

touch. We are in a knowledge economy. It is all about competition. 

If we don’t keep these people, if we don’t compete, we are going to 

lose. We are going to become a Third World country, and they are 

going to become like us. That, in a nutshell, is what I want to say. 

I can prescribe fixes here, but it is really a numbers game. We 

have to increase the number of visas available. We have to admit 

students to stay. Not that if we gave all these students visas, they 

would stay; they would still want to go back home. But it becomes 

harder once you have worked in America for a few years to go back 

home because you fall in love with this great country. 

We have to fix the obvious problems, and we will fix the system. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wadhwa follows:] 

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Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Wadhwa. 

Mr. Lowell? 

TESTIMONY OF B. LINDSAY LOWELL, Ph.D., DIRECTOR OF POLICY STUDIES, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Mr. LOWELL. I would like to thank the Chairman and the Members of the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify today. 


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Immigrants in science and engineering benefit the U.S. economy. 

I am third-generation and was raised by my Romanian grandmother. My father was a biochemist who started a laboratory and 

held several patents. His drive makes it easy for me to visualize 

how the immigrant experience benefits us and of the uniqueness of 

such individuals. 

I was also raised in California during the NASA space race and 

saw how the industry’s ups and downs affected the workforce. I believe that demand-side policies will be most successful in boosting 

the S&E workforce. I think the challenge of a competitive policy is 

regulations that admit the best and brightest. 

First, the domestic student pipeline isn’t broken. When my colleagues and I looked into concerns about the pipeline, we were surprised to find many were misplaced. We found that we have a large 

student body and a small S&E workforce. We average more domestic S&E graduates than past or projected annual S&E job openings. 

International test averages can mislead. Individual U.S. states 

test better than smaller nations. National testing shows improvement. We are a large nation with a lot of students in the upper 

tails of test score performance. 

Student interest in S&E has been steady for decades. Surveys of 

incoming college freshmen and my research shows a pretty steady 

flow through the pipeline. All together, these trends suggest a 

steady supply and improvement. 

Next, the S&E labor market is not tight. Economists say if demand outstrips supply, wages escalate to address the shortage. 

That is a tight labor market. If there is a plentiful supply of labor, 

wages will be lower. That is a loose market. Consider these indicators: There is a poor retention of S&E workers. Workers in S&E 

jobs are about one-third of persons with an S&E degree. I have explored broader S&E-relevant jobs definitions and still find retention problems. 

There has been a boomlet of S&E immigrants. The high percent 

of immigrants in S&E has many causes. What it clearly suggests 

is that policy provides a very significant addition to available labor. 

S&E wages lag alternative professional jobs. I cite four studies 

in my written testimony that find S&E wage growth has slowed or 

is less than that of comparable professions. These indicators suggest that today’s S&E market is loose. 

The best and the brightest are not about more, and it is not easy. 

Of course, job supply is not a zero-sum game, and the supply of immigrants might boost the opportunities for domestic workers. But 

that is not the entire story. Less well understood is the nature of 

immigrant selectivity or those few who are the best. In a competitive, globalizing world, getting that certain X factor should be what 

policy is all about. 

Globalization affects the selectivity of Nobel Prize winners. 

Globalization has led to a decreasing percent of immigrants among 

those prize winners. Globalization works against selectivity by flattening borders. 

And it takes time to grow an entrepreneur. They have been here 

for decades, mostly. Some were previously students who became 

green-card holders. Selectivity operates here, as well. Consider the 

difficulties that Australia had with awarding permanency to forVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:49 Dec 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\100511\70576.000 HJUD1 PsN: 70576
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eign graduates. Still, data from 2008 show no decline in foreign 

student or U.S. worker stay rates, albeit we have no recent precise 

data on changes in the last couple of years. 

How many inventors and entrepreneurs? Census data on the 

S&E workforce and immigrant entrepreneurs indicate that one has 

to admit many immigrants to get entrepreneurs in a few metropolitan areas. In short, selectivity is a chore. 

In summary, a generous number of S&E migrants have been admitted, and, as the system is currently structured, that will continue. There is little evidence that our pipeline produces too few domestic students, and employment opportunities are not as strong 

as they could be. 

Nevertheless, today’s admission system clearly is faulty, and targeted changes should be made. I suggest three principles. 

First, changes should be careful not to significantly increase admissions—not decrease, that is not in the cards, but not increase. 

America’s competitive advantage is best served by spurring domestic demand. Expanded temporary programs inevitably crowd adjustments to permanent status, and that merry-go-round is a fundamental problem here. 

Second, uniquely innovative people are not common, and policy 

should be selective. Keeping employers in the driver’s seat but providing different mechanisms is a good idea for admission. 

Third, policy should be fair while being selective. There are a lot 

of good candidates in the backlog. Time in temporary status is likely to impair while permanent status will improve migrant productivity. Working out the backlog with a preference for the S&E 

workers who are already here helps address bottlenecks while 

maintaining selectivity. 

Again, I want to thank the Committee. It is well versed in many 

of these ideas, and my purpose here is not to detail specific recommendations but to provide information. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lowell follows:] 

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Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Lowell. 

Mr. Nassirian? 

TESTIMONY OF BARMAK NASSIRIAN, ASSOCIATE EXECUTIVE 

DIRECTOR, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGIATE REGISTRARS AND ADMISSIONS OFFICERS (AACRAO) 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Lofgren, thank 

you for the opportunity to participate. 


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I am here in a purely ministerial and technical role. We are not 

participants in development of immigration policy at my organization. But to whatever extent the Subcommittee contemplates a credentials-driven set of immigration policy changes, we suddenly 

take notice and become very interested just because my membership is in the business of producing and consuming academic credentials. I represent registrars and admissions officers. 

With regard to the conversation you are having today, we would 

only bring to your attention two cautionary notes: one having to do 

with the very distinct probability of abuse with regard to any system that ties such a rich reward as permanent residency in the 

United States to academic credentials; and, second, the very predictable unintended consequences of, again, tying something as 

marketable and as valuable as residency in the U.S. to credentials. 

So let me very briefly touch on the two topics. This is not pro 

or con whatever the substantive judgment of the Subcommittee 

may be with regard to immigration policy. We hope you do pay 

some technical attention to some of the details. 

Regarding abuse, we have a—— 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Could you pull it just a little closer? That is better. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. It is not going to get any closer than this, though. 

Okay. 

With regard to abuse, we are very concerned about the terms and 

conditions of recognition for whatever credentials the Subcommittee decides to single out for any kind of preferential treatment. We talk about ‘‘STEM’’ fields with a certain kind of intuitive 

understanding of what we are talking about, but I want to make 

sure you realize—again, my folks think in almost computer-programmer precision when you say ‘‘major.’’ 

There are numerous groupings of academic disciplines that various governmental bodies have decided to include under the heading of ‘‘STEM.’’ The National Science Foundation includes behavioral sciences under that heading. Even the tightest-drawn definition of science, technology, engineering, and math will group together extremely heterogenous fields. You know, I don’t know how 

many more cosmologists we may need. It may be that we are very 

short of electrical engineers. 

But some serious attention needs to be paid to what qualifies, because, again, the possibility of both abuse and unintended consequence will result. The more imprecision there is to the grouping 

of disciplines that the Subcommittee includes in its definition of 

‘‘STEM,’’ the more likely the probability of abuse and unintended 

consequence. So we urge you to pay some attention to that. 

And, obviously, the primary motivation ought to be what drives 

the identification of the field. I want to make sure you are aware 

that we have a very technical classification system for identifying 

academic fields in this country called the Classification of Instructional Programs, CIP. This is they system we all use, including 

Homeland Security and ICE and all of higher ed. But even that 

precise system is highly susceptible to gaming, because all it takes 

to put a new CIP code on the books is three credentials offered 

across the United States. So it is very easy to segue from something that you and I and any reasonable person would include 

40 

under the heading of ‘‘STEM’’ to things that you may be horrified 

to find out someday have now been subsumed under that heading. 

That is one area. 

The issue of the kinds of practices that institutions are likely to 

engage in is something that the Subcommittee should pay very 

close attention to. We are very concerned about the use of commissioned agents overseas, even today, for purposes of providing temporary visas to foreign students. And you can only imagine what 

is going to happen overseas if something, again, as rich as American residency gets tied to credentials. So some attention has to be 

paid to the overseas practices of institutions. 

Some attention has to be paid to what is an institution of higher 

education. There are multiple definitions. And, candidly, ICE has 

much broader definition than even Title IV, Department of Education. And, in candor, the Department of Education’s list is nothing to write home about if you begin to dig into it. So you may 

want to pay some attention to what you have in mind for institutions. 

And, finally, in terms of unintended consequence, be mindful of 

what happens to qualified American students in these fields. And 

be mindful of the very likely outcome of overproduction. That overproduction may sound like no big deal, but if you create a very rich 

freebie from the immigration policy side, you may inadvertently 

create cost-drivers that will continue the escalating tuition inflation 

that we have been battling for the last three decades. 

Thank you very much for the opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Nassirian follows:] 

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Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Mr. Nassirian. 

Ms. Whitaker, could you tell the Committee how it would impact 

TI if you could no longer recruit foreign STEM graduate students? 


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Ms. WHITAKER. Chairman Gallegly, that would have a huge impact on us because we have to focus on innovation and creativity 

and developing new products. And a huge number—you can see 

from the chart that I submitted, more than half of the graduate 

students in electrical engineering, so 55 percent of the master’s and 

63 percent of the Ph.D.s in electrical engineering, are foreign nationals. 

[The information referred to follows:] 


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Ms. WHITAKER. And so, if we were no longer able to recruit foreign nationals, we would not be able to fulfill the needs that we 

have as a company. 

And even worse yet, I think those students would then go to our 

competitors overseas, where they could work. And I think that 

would be a huge travesty to Texas Instruments and our industry. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. What percentage of TI’s electrical engineers have 

graduate degrees as opposed to a bachelor’s degree? 

Ms. WHITAKER. The majority of the students that we hire are 

bachelor’s degrees, about 55 percent. And so 45 percent of them are 

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tionals for bachelor’s degrees because we don’t need to. And so we 

don’t sponsor foreign nationals at the bachelor degree level. But we 

do, because we must, at the master’s and at the Ph.D. level. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you. 

Mr. Lowell, you stated in your testimony that STEM jobs used 

to pay better than alternate careers, such as lawyers, accountants, 

but now they pay less. What do you attribute that to? What is your 

assessment of that? 

Mr. LOWELL. I am going to play a good academic; I don’t think 

we have a good answer to that question. It is speculated that has 

been the increase of the foreign-born. It is speculated it is due to 

outsourcing. We don’t know precisely. 

What I think it is consistent with, and that is what I think we 

can strongly say, is that it shows that the labor market is a little 

soft. That means that, you know, there is no clear evidence of 

strong shortages. That is speaking across the entire STEM labor 

market, which is a broad thing. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Nassirian, would you be leery of advanced 

STEM degrees offered through the Internet? 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. It would be problematic. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Would you like to—— 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Well, the Internet is a mode of delivery, so I don’t 

want to condemn—the mode of delivery isn’t really the issue. The 

issue is the growth of entirely online institutions that are really 

Web sites that have been allowed to move up the food chain. Institutions that, a few decades ago, were certificate-granting vocational 

venues have almost, sort of without notice, moved up into degreegranting and now doctoral institutional status. 

And that is of concern, because when we talk about STEM fields, 

and particularly in this context—which, candidly, I am not very familiar with—but if we are talking about the context of economic 

growth, you are presumably speaking about research institutions. 

And it is very difficult to conceptualize an entirely online research—— 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Would you say it invites mischief? 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. And outright criminality, quite frankly. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. You raise concerns in your testimony about forprofit universities, but can abuses also occur in nonprofit universities? 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Absolutely. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. And maybe you could give us a little more 

thought on that, nonprofits verus profits, if there is any difference. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Well, it is basically a tax difference, frankly. It 

is not—and I want to—in full disclosure of my own status, some 

9 percent of my members are for-profit institutions. So, you know, 

just for the record. 

The concern here is the monetization of the sovereign prerogative 

of the American Government to decide who comes here by institutions. To whatever extent—you know, the profit motive is a very 

powerful incentive, so, naturally, you would be much more likely to 

find embellishments and maybe outright abuse where, you know, 

the profit motive may drive people to do things they probably 

shouldn’t. 

47 

We have seen that in Title IV, certainly. A disproportionate number of defaults are associated with the for-profit sector, and complaints in general just far outstrip complaints about nonprofits. 

But I want to, in full fairness, point out that there is a tremendous likelihood that the nonprofits are also going to move to take 

advantage of any benefits. And that may not be—there are pros 

and cons here. On the one hand, maybe the addition of vastly higher-quality students to the system will—you know, the rising tide 

will lift all boats. So maybe institutions that are now not necessarily the best research venues get better students and become 

better research venues. 

But, on the other hand, there is also a very distinct possibility 

that that will result in cost inflation, that everybody well seek to 

become, you know, Harvard as opposed to what they are really 

good at. And that may not be to the benefit of the Nation, because 

we need teaching venues, we need community colleges, we need 

places that are a good fit for the populations they have historically 

served. 

So that is one of our concerns, is that the Judiciary Committee 

or this Subcommittee inadvertently sort of writes education policy 

that may adversely impact American students. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much, Mr. Nassirian. 

Ms. Lofgren? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr Chairman. 

Before asking my questions, I would like to ask unanimous consent to place in the record a speech by Mayor Bloomberg regarding 

this topic; a letter from the American Council on International Personnel about today’s hearing; and two recent studies authored by 

Stuart Anderson and the National Foundation for American Policy. 

The studies, one titled ‘‘Keeping Talent in America,’’ and the 

other, ‘‘Waiting and More Waiting: America’s Family and Employment-Based Immigration System,’’ have found that Indian nationals in the employment-based third preference category will wait for 

up to 70 years for a permanent resident visa. 

So I would ask unanimous consent that those items be placed in 

the record. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Without objection. 

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Ms. LOFGREN. First, before I ask any questions, I would like to 

thank all of the witnesses for being here today and for their expertise and the thoughtful statements you have made. 

As many of you know, I introduced a bill a short while ago that 

addresses a whole multiplicity of issues, including the need to keep 

master’s and Ph.D. students who can create jobs here and a number of—reforming the H-1B program to make it truly a temporary 

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paid, undercutting the whole market. I think it is a good package, 

and I would like to recommend it to all of you. 

One of the issues I wanted to mention—and it really goes to the 

study I have just talked about—has to do with the per-country limitation as it relates—well, it is a problem on the family side as 

well, but on the employment side. If you take a look—for example, 

Iceland. A great country, I am sure. The population is about 

300,000 people. They have the same number of visas as India, with 

a population of 1.1 billion. So it is no wonder that this doesn’t work 

very well. And it needs to be fixed. 

However, the study shows us that just eliminating those categories is not going to fix it. Because if it is 70 years under the current system, if you eliminate the caps it is 12 years for everybody. 

And I don’t think 12 years is competitive with the rest of the 

world—not with Canada, not with Australia, not with the people 

who are competing for the very people we are trying to get to stay 

here, build companies, and create jobs. So I just wanted to mention 

that. 

I had a bill a couple of years ago with Congressman Goodlatte 

to do the elimination of per country limits, but we had a companion 

bill with Congressman Sensenbrenner to recapture unused visas. 

And it was the two together that actually worked. 

I want to thank—also, I see the IEEE is here today. And I want 

to thank SIA and the IEEE for the leadership that they have 

shown in putting together proposals to make this whole system 

work. As well as the testimony, Ms. Whitaker, about the need for 

master’s degrees, not just Ph.D.s, I think that is key. 

Now, I wanted to ask you, Mr. Nassirian—your comments were 

very, very helpful. In the bill that I introduced, we don’t want the 

system to be gamed. What we want—I mean, if you just got your 

Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford, there is a good bet 

we might want to you to stay here and build some companies. It 

is not the ‘‘Fly-by-Night U.’’ guys that we want. 

And so what we put in was, we have the National Science Foundation certify research universities. Right now the Carnegie Institute does that. And I envision that the National Academies and 

Carnegie and others might provide advice to the Science Foundation. But it is about 200 universities in the United States, and I 

really think that is all it should be. Because that is the group— 

this isn’t an education bill; this is about jobs for Americans. 

And do you think that that would solve the issue that you have 

identified? 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Representative Lofgren, all of these institutions 

are my members, and they are all above average. So I—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. Right. Maybe that is not a fair question to ask. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN [continuing]. Shouldn’t be in the business of separating 200 of them from the rest. 

But I would suggest, first of all, if you assigned a task to the— 

it is vexing, because there was a multiyear effort by the National 

Research Council to create rankings, something as seemly simple 

as rankings, of graduate programs. They produced one of the most 

confusing, four-dimensional—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. No, but I don’t rankings. 

101 

Mr. NASSIRIAN [continuing]. Matrices I have ever seen. And nobody can agree on what the rankings should be. 

Ms. LOFGREN. If you can get an award for research as a research 

university in the hard sciences—and your testimony on what is 

‘‘STEM’’ is very helpful and needs to be addressed. That is very different than, you know, you would like to be a hard-science school. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Sure. I suspect there are ways of legislatively defining, as opposed to simply handing it to an agency. Remember, 

NSF, as I just mentioned, actually includes behavioral sciences in 

its definition. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yes. We need to give guidance on what we want. 

I love poetry, but we are not trying to keep the poets here. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. The policy incentive ought to be—there are ways 

of legislatively framing certain kinds of de minimis research activity before an institution becomes eligible. 

I suggest that it has to be legislative because if you assign it to 

an agency, the institution that missed the 200 mark by 1 ticker 

will argue for perpetuity that they really ought to have been on the 

other side of the law. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yeah. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. So there are ways of defining it, I suspect, 

through some kind of ratio analysis. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yes. I see that my time—I have so many questions, Mr. Chairman. Maybe we will do a second round. 

But I am hopeful that we can come together and do something 

with green cards for the top graduates who will create jobs, that 

we can do something that addresses the inequity on the per-country issue by not only eliminating it but providing enough visas so 

it actually will work and allow America to be competitive, along 

with the other reforms that are necessary in the temporary H-1B 

program that I think are essential to have credibility. 

So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I would yield back in the hopes 

that we will have a second round. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, I am happy to have the gentleman 

from Iowa, Mr. King, ask his questions. Then I will ask mine in 

sequential order. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. Thanks. 

Mr. King? 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I thank Chairman of the full Committee, Mr. Smith, for giving 

me this opportunity. 

I appreciate the testimony of the witnesses. 

And I am just sitting here thinking, we are often looking at immigration policy piecemeal, and how does it fit in to the whole? 

And we are often also looking at the arguments that are the 

strongest to make changes in the current policy that we have. And 

I think that this argument that you have made here is one of the 

strongest arguments to make those changes. 

I would direct my first question to Mr. Lowell, I believe, and that 

would be this: that we bring into this country, on average, legally, 

over a million people a year—by far the most generous nation on 

Earth, and we all know that. 

102 

The advocacy that comes with, not a bill underneath us, but a 

concept here, would you endorse the idea of increasing H-1Bs within these categories that you all testified about if we offset and reduced those numbers from other visa categories? 

Mr. LOWELL. If that were doable. I am not sure that it is. 

Mr. KING. Well, this is Congress, so, yes. 

Mr. LOWELL. Well, I mean, having said that, I think the way I 

read the data is that permanent status tends to produce the best 

long-term results for immigrants. And I think that tends to be the 

best thing that employers are looking for. 

It is kind of a tight walk. I mean, we do need the temporary 

workers. There is a reasonable and a rational demand for H-1Bs. 

But when you don’t have enough slots in the permanent side to absorb them, you are going to be constantly in a problem. Because 

most people who come here and stay 6 years, they are going to 

want to stay, and employers are going to want them to stay because they have invested in them. So I think it is kind of tough 

to up the ante on that problem. 

Mr. KING. Well, thank you, Mr. Lowell. 

Mr. Wadhwa, you have looked at the psychology of this, and that 

is the heart of the testimony that you have given us. A lot of young 

people with good degrees want to go back to their home country for 

the reasons that you have described. 

But from the psychology of this from the other side, we are looking at a national policy, and I am going to advocate this: that if 

you look at the growth in our jobs in this country prior to the 

downward spiral, it is directly proportional to the legal immigration that has come into the country. In other words, illegal immigrants have used up, swallowed up every new job that has been 

created by this economy in the decade prior to the downward spiral. 

And so, in a nation that is that generous, would you support the 

idea of reducing some of the other categories in order to be able to 

accelerate toward citizenship some of the people that fit within this 

STEM definition that is part of our discussion today? 

Mr. WADHWA. In the short term, the challenge is the million who 

are stuck in limbo who are going back and fueling our competition. 

We have to keep them here somehow. Because they are Westerneducated, Western-skilled, and they are in very, very high demand. 

So, first, let’s figure out how to keep those people here, even if 

we do a one-time deal to legalize those people. I have suggested 

that if you said anyone who is here legally in that million, anyone 

who buys a house can get a green card immediately, that is one 

way. If they start a company—you know, for example, we need a 

startup visa very badly. If they start a company which employs 

more than five Americans in the next 3 years, they can get a green 

card. 

So if we can do a quick fix to take care of that million—in the 

long term, yes, we do have to look at the system overall and juggle, 

do we need more of A or do we need more of B? At the end of the 

day, we are competing. The world has changed. It is not just—you 

know, we can’t be as magnanimous as we have been in the past. 

We have to look after our own selfish interests, which means we 

have to figure out how we are going to grow our economy, how we 

103 

are going to boost economic growth, how we going to retain our 

competitive edge. 

Mr. KING. If I could interrupt you for a moment, the words ‘‘selfish interest,’’ I would like to explore that a little bit because I think 

our immigration policy should be selfish. I think it should be designed to enhance the economic, the social and the cultural wellbeing of the United States of America, and any other nation, Iceland included, should establish a policy for the same merit. Do you 

agree with that? 

Mr. WADHWA. I agree with that 100 percent. It is all about America and America’s long-term growth. It is not about doing good for 

the world. We need to do that also, but that is not what immigration policy is for. 

Mr. KING. Then I would return to Mr. Lowell, and I would ask 

you if you care to comment on that. There are several countries in 

the world who have either established a policy or are in the process 

of working toward one. 

I remember a hearing we had about 3 years ago on this Committee. It was on a merit system. These were all—it was Australia, 

Canada, the United Kingdom, either establishing a policy or working to establish a policy that set up a point system that scored five 

different categories of potential immigrant. 

One was age. Bring them in while they are young enough that 

they can pay enough taxes to justify paying them Social Security 

when they are older. 

Another one was education and the level of education skills they 

bring in. 

The third one was job skills. Earning ability. That would be three 

and four. 

And the fifth one was language skills, which is an indicator 

viewed by those countries as the ability to assimilate into the 

broader culture. 

Could you support a proposal that would do that and a point system that would bring people in based on merit? 

Mr. LOWELL. I mean, part of my point is exactly you need to set 

up some kind of selectivity mechanism. Just admitting migrants 

and more migrants is no guarantee that you are going to get the 

best and brightest. In part, that is what the discussion here is 

about in terms of masters versus Ph.D.s. 

You know, I am not necessarily a fan of point systems. And the 

reason is, if you think about it, the United States already constrains certain occupations. Usually there is an occupational minimum and the employer is making a decision and they usually are 

going to bring in somebody that has English capacity. 

So the thing about the United States is we are first in line, and 

I don’t think that is going to change in the near future. These other 

countries that you mentioned are basically second in line. And 

what happens is that point system is following a different logic system, and I think part of our success has been that employers are 

in the driver’s seat. The interesting thing is both Australia and 

Canada now have started awarding points for employee sponsorship. So I am not against that idea. It has some merit because it 

sets up selectivity, and I think that is what it is all about. But I 

think employers need to be left in the driver’s seat. 

104 

Mr. KING. Our clock has run down, so I just thank you for your 

answer, and I just make the point that we are a country that has 

more people coming in right now than the jobs can accommodate. 

I appreciate your response, and I yield back. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Gowdy. 

Mr. GOWDY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Nassirian, what fields are we deficient in with respect to 

American students? 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. What is your definition of ‘‘deficient?′′ 

Mr. GOWDY. Deficient enough that we would have a program 

where we needed to get outside help. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. I have no position. I can tell you that there are 

disciplines that are now disproportionately enrolling non-U.S. citizens and non-U.S. residents, but I don’t know that that is—by the 

way, that does not—the fact that 80 percent of all doctoral degrees 

in a particular field are awarded to non-U.S. residents does not, at 

least to me, necessarily suggest that there is a problem. To me it 

suggests that we have excess capacity possibly, and that we are exporting 80 percent of that capacity and essentially charging. But 

there is nothing wrong with that. 

So it seems to me, and again I am a civilian here, I am not an 

immigration policy person. To me, based on what I am hearing, the 

primary sort of evidence has to be employment-based. I would hasten to add that some of the fields that we all worry about, Ph.D.s 

in mathematics, I think in the early mid-nineties there was a 13 

percent unemployment rate for Ph.D.s in mathematics in the 

United States. 

So I don’t know that any categorical answer would be the one 

you are looking for. Certainly the Ph.D. for mathematics from MIT, 

who was likely to be the next math prodigy, we would want to 

keep. The concern we have is if you just label every Ph.D. in mathematics is as good as every other Ph.D. And they should all stay, 

you may find mismatches between what the policy goals might 

have been and what the outcome ends up being. But I don’t know 

that the definition of deficiency is one that you need to—— 

Mr. GOWDY. I don’t either, and that is why I asked. 

Mr. Lowell, when I hear science and math, is psychology science? 

What fields—and is there some strategy we should be pursuing 

stateside to incentivize our students to want to go in these graduate programs? 

Mr. LOWELL. Well, you know, there is a lot of definitional issues 

here: What is STEM, what is core STEM, what are the social 

sciences? I don’t know. I mean, that is something you would have 

to wrestle with in how you set up an admissions system. Psychology, a broad definition can be included in STEM. So can economists for that matter. And a lot of these actually require—as my 

discipline, which is demography—require a fair amount of math 

skill. But that is different from the natural sciences or engineering 

or IT. Does that kind of answer your question? 

Mr. GOWDY. It does. And I think both of you touched on potential 

pitfalls and areas in which abuse can be rife, and I am interested 

in shoring those up as well. So I would love it if you would extrapolate a little more if you want to, from your opening remarks on the 

105 

areas where abuse is a potential, in whichever order you would 

like. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. Unless there is a multitiered review system before U.S. residency is provided for someone, our concern is that a 

purely credentials-driven system will be abused, A. It is almost a 

certainty. 

You know, the H1B category is currently being manipulated in 

ways that would make your head spin. The amount of forum shopping that goes on by immigration attorneys to essentially get a foreign credential evaluated as highly as possible would be stunning 

to most people, and it would be stunning to Members of Congress 

to know that there are no definitions of who is qualified to evaluate 

those credentials. I mean, I could hang up a shingle tomorrow and 

start to. 

So the system will be abused. The more you rely merely on credentials, without giving a lot more by way of definitions, explanations, and additional triggers, the more likely abuse is going to 

take place. Frankly, it won’t just be additive abuse. It is not just 

that now a bunch of people may not have had a mind to come in, 

it is the kind of abuse that will also undermine the American higher ed system because it will compromise the integrity of all 

credentialing agencies because the race to the bottom will begin. 

Mr. LOWELL. I am leery of singling out any particular occupation 

or field of study. It is clear, though, that talking, for example, 

about H1Bs—and I imagine even the permanent market—there is 

a segmentation of employers. You have some good actors and bad 

actors. And I have some thoughts about that. But, you know, mostly what we need are systems that screen appropriately to try to get 

rid of that problem. I am a fan of post-employment audit systems 

that give us a realtime measure of what abuse rates are. We know 

that abuse in H1Bs run at least 20 percent. 

In terms of specific fields of education, you know, that comes and 

goes any given year. I mean, petroleum engineers are really a hot 

commodity right now and I assure you their wages are outracing 

others at the moment. So it depends. It really depends year-to-year. 

And when you have soft labor markets, though, the potential for 

abuse is actually greater because workers and employers are trying 

to undercut the market a little bit. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The time of the gentleman has expired. 

Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I would like to wait on my questioning. Thank 

you. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Nassirian, you actually raised a subject that I want to ask 

all my questions about, because I think it is the overriding point, 

although you disqualified yourself from answering my questions because you said you don’t want to get into policy. So I will ask the 

other panelists my questions. But I appreciate your raising the 

subject of abuses and how abuses might undermine both the STEM 

visas as well as the educational programs themselves. That is what 

I want to go to. 

What I would like to do is ask the other three panelists five 

questions which I think you can answer yes or no. It all goes to 

106 

whether or not you could support a policy that limits applicants to 

these qualifications. 

One, would you be comfortable limiting these individuals to graduates of research institutions that had been in existence, say, 10 

or 20 years? 

Ms. Whitaker, do you want to answer first? What I am trying to 

get at is avoid the mail order Ph.D.s and masters, obviously. But 

would you be comfortable limiting individuals who received these 

visas to those who had graduated from research institutions in existence for some number of years? 

Ms. WHITAKER. For some number of years? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Let’s say it is arbitrary, 10 or 20. It shouldn’t 

be a big problem. If it is a problem, I will limit the number of years 

or something like that. 

Ms. WHITAKER. But we would absolutely support research institutions that are well-established and top-ranking that have been in 

existence for a number of years. 

Mr. SMITH. That is my point. Okay. Mr. Wadhwa? 

Mr. WADHWA. I think that is a sensible way of doing it. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Lowell? 

Mr. LOWELL. The devil is in the details, but yes. 

Mr. SMITH. In general. This isn’t a trick question. I am just trying to get some general parameters that we might explore. 

What about would you be comfortable with requiring the individuals to have a job offer? 

Ms. WHITAKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. WADHWA. Yes, except for the start-up visa issue. If they start 

their own company, which in Silicon Valley you have to realize the 

energy and how these kids who graduate from Stanford and Berkeley start companies which become the next Facebook. With that exception, yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Good point. Mr. Lowell. 

Mr. LOWELL. Yes, job offers should always be primary, and I am 

with Vivek. 

Mr. SMITH. What about this? Would you be willing to limit them 

to, say, have some academic minimum standard, maybe top half of 

their class, grade point average B or above, something like that? 

Some academic qualification? 

Ms. WHITAKER. We do that anyway as a company, so certainly 

we already look at grade point average and require that. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Mr. Wadhwa? 

Mr. WADHWA. I think the employer should judge that, not—the 

employer should judge that. Because, you know, I was an average 

student. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t at the top of my class. 

Yet I did pretty well. 

Mr. SMITH. Don’t ever confess that publicly. 

Mr. Lowell? 

Mr. LOWELL. Yes, I think some kind of minimum is probably a 

good idea. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. What about asking for a—— 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. May I weigh in on this one? I would urge you not 

to do it, because what it does, we run into this with scholarship 

programs, you end up counterintuitively rewarding lower standards 

because you get a higher GPA at an institution that is less rigVerDate Aug 31 2005 13:49 Dec 12, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00110 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\100511\70576.000 HJUD1 PsN: 70576
107 

orous. So I think the point that—yet I recognize where you are 

going. 

Mr. SMITH. But if you are limiting it to established institutions, 

research universities—— 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. They are not all the same. 

Mr. SMITH. No, but they are all fairly competitive. 

Mr. NASSIRIAN. But generally what you do is you induce a student who will go to school A, leading research institution, school B, 

second tier. You go to second tier. 

Mr. SMITH. You really think they would try to game the system 

like that? Okay. All right. Three out of four there. What about committing to stay in the United States for 5 years? 

Ms. WHITAKER. I think it is the intent of all of the people that 

we are looking at is to stay in the United States. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, that is what we hope. We hope they are rightly 

motivated. That may not always be the case. People do game the 

system. 

Ms. WHITAKER. I think there are business conditions where I can 

imagine somebody had a green card, yet we wanted them to go for 

business reason to work temporarily in another country. So it is 

hard to say for business purposes that we would absolutely say 

stay in one country. We are a global company and we do tend 

to—— 

Mr. SMITH. The big argument for giving them visas is we hope 

and expect them to stay and contribute. And if they are not going 

to, why give them the visas? But anyway, Mr. Wadhwa, would you 

be comfortable with 5 years? 

Mr. WADHWA. We want people to stay here, but you have to realize right now the government, when you interview them at the U.S. 

consulate, you ask them, do you plan to stay? If you answer yes, 

then you won’t get a visa. It is the exact opposite of what we are 

talking about right now. So you really can’t force people to stay. 

Mr. SMITH. No, you can’t force them. All you are doing—and it 

may even be unenforceable. 

Mr. WADHWA. A pledge would be great. If we change the system 

so we try to bring in people who want to be permanent residents, 

it would be much better than what it is today. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Lowell? 

Mr. LOWELL. Do I understand the question? Do we want to ask 

them to stay 5 years? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Commit to 5 years, yes. 

Mr. LOWELL. I am not crazy about that either. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. That makes me question what your motive is, 

but we will leave that alone for right now. 

The last one is—which was brought up at the end, I think, Mr. 

Lowell, by you—would you be comfortable limiting them to graduate degrees in natural sciences, engineering, or information technology? 

Ms. WHITAKER. Yes. You said engineering, right? 

Mr. SMITH. Information technology, natural sciences, or engineering. 

Ms. WHITAKER. Engineering, yes. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Mr. Wadhwa? 

108 

Mr. WADHWA. If that is all we could get, I would say yes, if that 

is the best we could do. I would want much more, because I know 

great marketing people who become great CEOs. But if that is the 

best we can do, then that is a good compromise. 

Mr. SMITH. Maybe that is the exception to the rule, though. 

Mr. Lowell? 

Mr. LOWELL. I think I am in favor of that, sure. I think I am in 

favor. Again, I must be having problems hearing you. Did you differentiate Ph.D.s and masters by field? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. LOWELL. Yes, I think that is reasonable. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The time of the gentleman has expired. Ms. Jackson Lee? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, I would 

appreciate one more Member and then I would desire to take my 

5 minutes. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Poe. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here. 

Ms. Whitaker, I appreciate you being here. I have always been 

a great fan of Texas Instruments because probably the second 

greatest invention ever made was the transistor radio, and I still 

have one somewhere, hidden. But anyway, I am concerned about 

a couple of things. 

First, the immigration system we have I think needs to be overhauled. You set it aside and start over with it. The lottery system, 

where we let people come in because they win the lottery, is the 

silliest thing we have ever come up with. We ought to let people 

in the United States based upon the fact that we need them. 

One concern I would hope we would get an answer to is, I get 

this complaint from parents that their kid can’t get into a university because there are foreign students that are getting in. And this 

university takes the foreign student not because they are smarter, 

but because that country is paying cash and they are paying outof-state tuition, and this is just an in-state tuition person who may 

need a scholarship to go to school. I get that complaint. 

Whether it is valid or not, I want you all to address the issue 

of universities letting them in because they are paying more money 

than Americans. I am concerned about the fact that Americans are 

not seeking these degrees. 

So let me start with Ms. Whitaker. I know you speak for TI. Do 

you think we are doing enough to ensure that qualified Americans 

are considered for these jobs they have at Texas Instruments, we 

as a society, as a country? 

Ms. WHITAKER. As a country are we doing enough to have students in these programs? 

Mr. POE. Americans. 

Ms. WHITAKER. Americans. 

Mr. POE. ‘‘Mericans.’’ 

Ms. WHITAKER. You know, that is something for which I think 

all corporations have a responsibility. I know at Texas Instruments 

there are a lot of things that we are doing. I think we can always 

do more, but there are a lot of things we are doing not only from 

109 

TI, but the TI Foundation. I am a member of the TI Foundation 

board. But we have programs where we are focusing on the students to try to get more students in K through 12, and everybody 

does have a handout that we submitted, but to get more students 

focused on engineering, on science and math, throughout their 

whole education. 

There are programs that we have where we are bringing in 

teachers, or helping fund teachers, because we think teachers are 

some of the most critical people in keeping children and getting 

children interested. We have a huge number of employees that will 

go to schools. I did that after I got my bachelor’s in electrical engineering. I was quickly recruited to go and visit schools and talk to 

kids about math and science and why it is important, because I 

think it starts at a very young age. 

We also do things like advanced placement incentives to try to 

keep kids or get kids interested just to take the test, because studies have shown that if kids will take those advanced placement 

tests in math and science, then they will do better in school. 

So there are a lot of different programs, bringing teachers into 

inner cities through Teach for America, bringing teachers in to 

teach in schools and stay there and try to make commitments to 

stay in those schools in inner cities, to just be there and help kids 

and help them be interested in math and science. 

Mr. POE. Let me ask you this: Is it a problem that kids aren’t 

interested in science, or that our education system is so bad they 

don’t get a good science background, therefore they don’t get into 

the universities and you don’t hire them? Or is it a combination of 

this? 

Ms. WHITAKER. Well, one of our biggest challenges isn’t so much 

that kids don’t go into engineering. But where we have our challenge, which we are talking about today is really in our Ph.D.s and 

our masters. We have bachelor’s degree graduates in electrical engineering, a majority American. That is who we hire. As I said earlier, we don’t sponsor green cards, or sponsor H1Bs for foreign students who have just received bachelor’s, because we don’t have to. 

It is getting them to go to that next level. It is the Ph.D. and the 

master’s degree area that we have a challenge. More than 50 percent of these students are foreign nationals. 

Mr. POE. So why don’t they want to go to the next level? I guess 

that is my question. Why don’t they want to go to the next level? 

They are not qualified education-wise or motivated. Which is it, or 

both? 

Ms. WHITAKER. I don’t really know the exact reason why they 

don’t. I would assume it is some of all. I would assume it is because 

they want to get out and go get a job versus staying in and getting 

the next degree. 

Mr. POE. How big a problem—I am sorry, I am just limited on 

time. How big a problem is this: Somebody in a foreign country 

comes to the United States. They go to one of our universities. 

They graduate. They have a Ph.D. in one of these areas. They go 

to work for you and they work for you for a period of years. They 

do real good work. We send them back home because they can’t 

stay in the country, and then they go compete against us in some 

foreign country. 

110 

Ms. WHITAKER. That is a huge problem. That is what we are trying to avoid. We are absolutely trying to avoid educating and training students in the United States and sending them home to go 

compete against us. 

Mr. POE. We don’t want that to happen. 

Ms. WHITAKER. We would love to have them here, to be on our 

team and play for Texas Instruments, instead of going to play for 

somebody else. That is exactly what we are trying to do. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The time of the gentleman has expired. Ms. Jackson Lee. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much. Ms. Whitaker, welcome. Coming from Texas, I am well aware of the legacy of Texas 

Instruments. I have a series of questions that I would like you to 

help me with. 

First of all tell me, if you can, by numbers or estimates of the 

numbers of jobs an immigrant who would be able to stay under any 

kind of visa in these particular areas—science, technology, engineering, math—might create at Texas Instruments. What I am saying is an immigrant with the expertise you say they need, how 

many jobs would they generate? 

Ms. WHITAKER. We have today roughly 400 people who are in our 

green card process, and so that is people who today who are currently Ph.D.s, master’s degree students, or employees with electrical engineering degrees that we employ. They have been waiting 

for up to a decade in some cases for a visa. We wish they could stay 

here and be permanent employees and they wish they could stay 

here and be permanent employees. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I don’t think you heard my question. So you 

have 400 of them. How many jobs have they created by their existence and the products they are producing, creating jobs out of their 

existence here? 

Ms. WHITAKER. You know, it is not something that we track that 

we can tell exactly that somebody’s new technology, new device, 

new IP, has created X number of jobs. It is not something that you 

can exactly measure. But it is certainly the way that we do create 

jobs through intellectual property, through patents, through new 

devices, new technology, that our customers then buy. And that is 

exactly what we do get from our master’s and our Ph.D. students 

or employees that we have. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Well, I am on your side and I have been on 

your side, but I think it is valuable for our Silicon Valley friends 

and for you to begin making that kind of analysis. You are a smart 

enough company to be able to do so. It is very difficult now to talk 

about these visas when we have a population of Americans that are 

unemployed. They may not be trained appropriately, but we have 

a generation of young people that we are trying to get in sync. And 

I know Texas Instruments has done a lot in that area. So I am very 

interested in that, so let me pursue that. 

What efforts have you made in partnership with historically 

Black colleges and Hispanic-serving colleges to actually steer our 

population of Americans into those particular areas, and what results are you getting? How many African American Ph.D.s do you 

111 

*The Subcommittee and Rep. Jackson Lee received a response from Gene Irisari, Director of 

Government Relations, Texas Instruments, to Rep. Jackson Lee’s question. That response is not 

included in this printed record. 

have, how many Latino Ph.D.s do you have coming out of U.S. universities? 

Ms. WHITAKER. Actually, it is one of the areas that we are quite 

proud of at Texas Instruments, is that we have a focus on hiring 

at universities above census, and we do just that. So we hire above 

census. One of the challenges that we have, and even though in the 

United States we may have 15 percent African American and 15 

percent Hispanic in the general population, in electrical engineering that number is less than 5 percent. So not only do we need to 

do what we are doing, which is hiring above census, we also need 

to do things, which we are, which is actually helping students—— 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Track into that area. 

Ms. WHITAKER. Go into that area. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Because I have a short period of time. So do 

you have a number that you can give me to let me know either how 

many you have in the pipeline or how many you have on staff, 

Ph.D.s in this area, for Latinos and African Americans? 

Ms. WHITAKER. I actually don’t have. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Would you be kind enough to provide that 

back to the Committee, please, for my edification? I would appreciate it.* 

Let me go to Mr. Wadhwa, because I am very excited about new 

starts. I think you are absolutely right about new starts. We should 

not leave them out, young bright individuals coming out with visas 

or if they have had academic visas. I would just ask the impossible, 

which is how do we mix those new-start geniuses with American 

students? Some of it, their alliances have already been made because they are in school together. But how else can we do so? 

Mr. WADHWA. I wrote an article for the Washington Post which 

was titled ‘‘Why We Need a Black Mark Zuckerberg.’’ It talked 

about the fact that Blacks are being left out all about. It was written about the dearth of women. Women are being left out altogether. It is a systematic problem in American society. It has nothing to do with immigration. This is a problem with attitudes in society, with the way we bring up children. 

We have to look at the system. We also have to look at—you 

know, Indians right now constitute—one out of every start-up in 

Silicon Valley is started by an Indian. Thirty years ago it was zero. 

How did we go from zero to 15.5 percent? We set up networks and 

we started mentoring and helping each other. 

We need to set those up now for the Blacks and for the Latinos 

and for the women, and start networking and helping each other. 

They have access to it, but it is a different discussion than immigration. I would love to be able to work with you on that if you 

need to. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let my just finally say I think this visa is valuable to Mr. Smith. I guess he is not here. I would not leave out 

institutions, for example, like Texas Southern University. It is not 

a Harvard or a Yale or a Berkeley or a Stanford, but it has some 

very strong science programs, pharmaceutical programs and Ph.D. 

programs. 

112 

So if we are going to do this, we can’t try to backdoor it, meaning 

that we want to be hard on immigration but open to STEM-type 

visas. We have to open it to universities whose programs are 

strong. I think our procedures need to be in place. 

Mr. Chairman, I think we need to, however we come together on 

writing some sort of focus, we need to be able to generate or suggest that for these individuals that stay here, jobs are created. 

That is attractive to the American public. It is attractive overall 

that we create jobs by the individual genius that we retain here in 

the United States. And whether we hold them for 5 years, I think 

there should be some carrot, if we put incentive language in to say 

we would like a 5-year commitment. We have done that in the 

Peace Corps and everywhere else, so we should be able to do it 

with that kind of legislation. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. The time of the lady has expired. 

Mr. Ross. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Whitaker, Mr. Poe touched on this a little bit. I am from 

Florida and we have got 12 universities and community colleges 

there. And we make, of course, a substantial investment in some 

of these students, and then we see them leave, not only leave the 

State; after awhile they leave the country because their visas have 

expired. 

I am sure Texas Instruments has made an investment of some 

significance, whether by way of scholarships or whatnot, in order 

to try to sort of incentivize to get these students to get their advanced degrees and then, of course, to try to keep them here. 

My concern is, what if we do nothing? What if we as a Congress 

do nothing and do not increase these STEM visas? Is there a business plan that you all have discussed or considered that you will 

have to follow in order to meet your needs? 

Ms. WHITAKER. We don’t have a business plan prepared for not 

being able to hire half of the graduates that are coming out of universities. Unfortunately, we don’t have a plan for that. We think 

it is absolutely critical to be able to hire half of the graduates coming out of universities at the Ph.D. and the master’s degree level. 

And several people here have commented on unemployment, or we 

have available people. In electrical engineering, the unemployment 

rate is 3.7 percent, and so it is not an easy job to—— 

Mr. ROSS. But in order to maintain your competitive advantage 

on a global basis, would you have to consider maybe even relocating some of your R&D overseas, in a country that has a more 

acceptable immigration policy? 

Ms. WHITAKER. Yes, absolutely. Like I say, we don’t have a plan 

for it, but that is exactly what you have to do, because you have 

to be able to get the best and brightest. Our company is all about 

innovation. It is all about developing new electronic devices for customers to use. You would have to go to wherever you had to go to 

get the talent. We would love to get that talent here. We would 

love to get that talent out of U.S. universities. And they are here, 

and we have trained them and we would love to keep them, but 

we will have to go wherever the best and brightest talent is. 

113 

Mr. ROSS. Because it is your desire to not lose your competitive 

advantage and you will do what is necessary to maintain that and 

increase that if you can. 

Ms. WHITAKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROSS. I don’t know who best to ask this, maybe Mr. Lowell. 

Based on the trend over the last 10 years, we have seen a real 

number increase of STEM visas being requested and we have seen 

a decrease in citizens, American citizens obtaining these advanced 

degrees, these master’s and Ph.D.s in the STEM areas, or can you 

say? 

Mr. LOWELL. It is a bit of a roller coaster. You know, STEM degrees crashed after 2001 and domestic enrollments went up. Some 

people just think that was demographic growth, though. Recent 

changes are different. It has been a bit of a roller coaster. So I 

don’t think you can draw any easy conclusions. 

Mr. ROSS. So to follow up maybe on what Mr. Poe was saying, 

our American students, are they necessarily declining in application for these advanced degrees, or are we seeing a greater influx—— 

Mr. LOWELL. No. In terms of the student pipeline, it has been 

pretty steady. In fact, it has seen a slow growth over the last 15- 

20 years, in fact for a long time. And that is likely to remain the 

case for the immediate future, you know, 10 years or so out. The 

challenge is, of course, that the composition is changing—— 

Mr. ROSS. We have seen an increase in demand based upon the 

advancement of technology, the advancement of research and development? 

Mr. LOWELL. Employment in this area has been pretty flat for 

some time, and the BLS keeps on projecting large increases and 

they haven’t happened. We have had back-to-back recessions, to be 

fair. So it is not—I hate to be academic about it. 

Mr. ROSS. No, that is okay. You are one, and that is a good thing. 

Mr. Wadhwa, 1980, you come over here. You decide to stay. You 

become an entrepreneur. You create jobs, two software companies. 

If you had come over here today under these circumstances, could 

you still do it as though you did it 30 years ago? 

Mr. WADHWA. Right now today, I would be waiting 70 years to 

get my green card. In the meantime I wouldn’t be able to start a 

company. And more likely than not, if I was one of my students, 

I would be looking for a job back in India or in Singapore or even 

in Chile. Chile is now trying to get all of our American entrepreneurs to come over there. They are giving them $40,000 just to 

come and start a company there. 

Mr. ROSS. So while we are looking to try to create private sector 

jobs and incentivize entrepreneurs, we are taking this segment of 

the STEM visas and moving them aside. 

Mr. WADHWA. In the 1 million people in the backlog, we probably 

would have tens of thousands starting companies if they had a 

choice today. We won’t give them visas. This should be a nobrainer. 

Mr. ROSS. I agree. 

Mr. WADHWA. Anyone who starts a company, you know, they are 

here legally. There is no dispute about it. They are educated. American companies have hired them, so they are top-notch talent. They 

114 

are filing a quarter of America’s patents. Well, anyone who starts 

a company, 3 years from now if you are employing five Americans—and again I am talking about Americans—you get a green 

card. What could be simpler than that? Why don’t we agree on 

that? Both sides agree to it. Why aren’t we making it happen? 

Mr. ROSS. Mr. Lowell, my time is up. 

Mr. LOWELL. Yes, quickly. I mean, to be on the other side of this, 

immigrants are at least 25 percent of a lot of these STEM-granting 

kinds of fields, so it is maybe not surprising. Their proportion has 

been increasing and their proportion is likely to keep increasing at 

current levels of migration. That is my basic message. I am not arguing to restrict numbers. I think we need to reshift the way in 

which they come in. 

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. GALLEGLY. I thank the gentleman from Florida. 

The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from California, 

Ms. Waters. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Members. I am sorry I couldn’t get here a little bit earlier, but I was 

anxious to get here despite being held up, because I think this is 

such an important discussion. 

You must know that my office has been involved in putting together roundtables with industries that are involved in the hiring 

of STEM graduates, and we have programs that are attempting to 

attract young people and to guide them into the STEM pipeline. So 

many of us are very, very concerned about our lack of ability in 

this country to educate in the STEM advanced degree programs, 

and we are anxiously looking for a solution. 

Let me just say that I understand the business community’s need 

to hire STEM graduates and to retain them, and I have great respect for the mission and the jobs that must be done in these businesses, and I have great respect for those students who persevere 

and who come and who get trained. And I know that this whole 

discussion is about retention and allowing them to stay in the 

United States and to avoid having to go through such a rigorous 

process in order to do it. 

My focus is on what we can do to educate our citizens right here 

in the United States, and particularly minorities. We are way behind, African Americans, Latinos, way behind in educating young 

people to be prepared for the high-technology jobs, for all of those 

jobs where you have to have this kind of STEM education. 

So, while I am appreciative for some of what I know some industries are doing, much more has to be done both by the government 

and the private sector. As far as I am concerned, every student 

that wishes to be trained or developed in the STEM pipeline should 

be able to go to college and get advanced degrees without having 

to pay. They just should be able to do that. And I am not even talking about loans that they are saddled with for the rest of their 

lives. I am talking about if we are serious in this country about 

educating, we will make it possible for our students to get this education, regardless of whether or not they are able to afford it. 

But the industries themselves, I know that you are doing some 

things, but you got to do more. It is easy if you can hire those who 

have been trained and you can retain them in the United States, 

115 

and, as you are being accused oftentimes, you can pay them maybe 

less than you would be paying American citizens. I don’t know if 

that is true or not, but that is alleged, that there is a little exploitation going on here. But enough is enough, and we have got to do 

better. We must do better. 

It seems to me that if any of the industries—Texas Instruments, 

for example, why don’t you have your own private school? Why 

don’t you have a way by which you not only train, but tailor people 

coming through the STEM pipeline or people who have been educated, tailor them to the jobs that you have and what your needs 

are going to be? Why don’t you invest in your own education and 

opportunities for people who want to work in the industry to be 

educated and trained? Why don’t you do that? 

Ms. WHITAKER. We do. I guess what I would say is I agree wholeheartedly with you that we need to do both, that we need to—— 

Ms. WATERS. Tell me about your school. 

Ms. WHITAKER. We do invest. We don’t have a school. What I 

mean when I say I agree wholeheartedly is that we need to do 

both. We need to hire the people coming out of schools today and 

we need to better prepare people and encourage people who are not 

going to get those degrees, Americans who are not going to get 

those degrees, underrepresented groups that are not going to get 

those degrees. We need to better prepare them. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, what are you doing? Are you doing scholarships? Are you contributing to educational institutions? How are 

you helping? 

Ms. WHITAKER. We have a wide range of programs. We have in- vested over $150 million in the last several years on these programs, things like advanced placement education, incentives to students, incentives to teachers to encourage students, mainly in the 

Dallas School District, to get into math and science. We are funding teachers to come into Teach For America and through You 

Teach to bring more and better qualified teachers to the local 

schools in order to help students. 

We are sending our employees to the local schools to help understand what engineering is, to help them get excited about and 

learn more about math and science. We have a wide range of programs, something called Visioneering, where we bring students and 

we bring engineers and we bring teachers all together so they can 

learn about what math and science is. 

So there are a lot of programs that we are doing today, but I absolutely agree that there is more to do. We don’t have our own 

school because it is not our core competency. Our core competency 

is developing and designing integrated circuits or computer chips, 

or chips, as people might call them. 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. But if you don’t have people to come to work 

and do what you need them to do, you can have your core mission 

but you may not be able to accomplish it because there are some 

of us who are not going to support retention or some of us are 

going to look at, you know, these visas and say, you know, enough 

is enough. America has got to commit itself to training and development. So what do you do then? 

Mr. GOWDY. [Presiding.] The gentlelady’s time has expired. I 

thank the gentlelady from California. 

116 

The Chair would now recognize the gentlelady from California, 

the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, Ms. Lofgren. 

Mrs. LOFGREN. Thank you for letting me make some concluding 

comments, because I think that this may be an opportunity where 

the ‘‘battling bickersons’’ between the parties can come together 

and agree on some things, and I think that is a very hopeful thing. 

As I was listening to Mr. Smith—I am sorry he had to go to another meeting—I was thinking, that is in my bill. That is in my 

bill. I mean, to limit this to research institutions is essential. 

Issues have been raised about how to do that, and it is helpful but 

we can deal with that. 

Yes, of course, you have to have the job offer. That is in the bill 

I have introduced as well. Yes, there needs to be some minimum 

standards. And in fact, there is a concern about grade inflation 

that was expressed to us by the universities. But we don’t need the 

D students. There needs to be some standards here. 

And, yes, we want people to stay here. And Mr. Wadhwa, you are 

exactly right. We have it backwards. In the bill we change student 

visas to dual intent. The last thing we want to do is have the 

smartest students in the world come here and promise never to 

stay. That is just backwards. So the bill that I have introduced 

would change that. 

The definition of who we need I think is something we need to 

work on. But I think we are all going to agree, electrical engineering is going to be in that category. And I think it is worth looking 

at the numbers. 

Now, master’s degrees—this is from 2009, I think it is the latest 

figures—foreign students got about 7,000 master’s degrees in the 

United States, and a little over 1,300 Ph.D.s. Now, not every one 

of those institutions would qualify as a research institution and 

maybe they didn’t all get Bs either. And then not all of them would 

necessarily want to stay. So this is not a huge number of individuals we are talking about, but it is a key group that we are talking 

about. 

I very much agree with my colleague from California, Ms. Waters, that we need to do a better job of investing in American students. And one of the things in the bill that I introduced is an allocation of fees, visa fees. It comes up to $500 million a year that 

would be put into STEM education for American students. I don’t 

see these as alternatives. I mean, if we have the Ph.D. recipient 

from MIT who is going to go out and create companies, of course 

we want to keep that person here. And it is not instead of educating American students, it is both, to make a prosperous country. 

So I just think we have an opportunity here to make progress. 

I am grateful to be permitted to make these additional comments 

and I look forward to working with all the Members of the Committee as well as our wonderful witnesses to have a success for 

America through job creation and immigration. 

I yield back. 

Mr. GOWDY. I thank the gentlelady from California. On behalf of 

all of us, we would like to thank our witnesses for your expertise, 

for your collegiality toward one another, and for your helpfulness 

to the Members of Committee. 

117 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit to the Chair additional written questions for the witnesses, 

which we will forward and ask the witnesses to respond as promptly as they can so that their answers can be made part of the record. 

Without objection, all Members will have 5 legislative days to 

submit any additional materials for inclusion in the record. 

With that, I thank the witnesses again, and this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:33 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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