Compete America

Compete America, The Alliance for a Competitive Workforce, is a coalition representing corporations, universities, research institutions and trade associations that advocates for reform of U.S. immigration policy for highly educated foreign professionals.

Compete America supports the idea that scientists, researchers, innovators and engineers will always be in demand and will always drive economic growth and job creation, whether American or foreign-born.^[1] Because of this, they argue that arbitrarily low visa quotas and massive backlogs in the system plague the employment- based visa process.

Compete America’s legislative goals are^[2]:

The end of arbitrary obstacles to employment and permanent residency for foreign-born master’s and Ph.D. graduates from U.S. universities
A streamlined green card process
A market-based H-1B visa cap

On May 23, 2007, Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times, “Compete America…is pleading with Congress to boost…the number of employment-based green cards given to high-tech foreign workers who want to stay here. Give them all they want! Not only do our companies need them now, because we’re not training enough engineers, but they will, over time, start many more companies and create many more good jobs than they would possibly displace. Silicon Valley is living proof of that — and where innovation happens matters. It’s still where the best jobs will be located.”^[3]

1 Principles of Compete America
2 List of Compete America coalition members^[5]
3 References
4 External links

Principles of Compete America

Compete America believes in the following principles^[4]:

The United States must grow domestic sources of talent, and our member organizations are committed to improving U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and encouraging more young Americans to choose careers in those fields.
U.S. employers must be able to recruit and retain foreign-born highly educated professionals – particularly after they graduate from a U.S. university – as an important complement to domestic sources of talent.
The U.S. employment-based visa system must be permanently fixed so that foreign-born talent can stay in the United States, innovating for America.
Brainpower is even more essential in a down economy, and future growth and job creation will be led by innovation, whether it’s new technologies, new cures or new sources of energy. America does not have a monopoly on brainpower, and in an increasingly competitive global environment, we have to retain the talent that will keep us leading worldwide innovation.
Strong, smart enforcement is needed, to protect American and foreign-national workers, and laws should punish bad actors and recognize that most employers who hire foreign professionals follow the rules scrupulously.
Immigration reform must safeguard the interests of American workers, while recognizing that excessive and protectionist measures that shut off access to foreign-national talent will only inhibit innovation, job growth and the resulting opportunities for American workers.