I hear that you told Congress today that U.S. high-tech companies like yours are being forced to outsource jobs overseas because of outdated restrictions on H-1B visas. As Chairman of Microsoft Corporation, I presume you are in a position to know such things, and I am willing to accept your statements as factual and unbiased. According to your testimony, our archaic immigration system makes attracting and retaining high-skilled immigrants exceptionally challenging for U.S. firms. In 2007, for example, Microsoft was unable to obtain H-1B visas for one-third of the highly qualified foreign-born job candidates that it wanted to hire.
All of this is very distressing, sir, and I applaud your initiative in raising this issue with our elected representatives and I feel your pain as you suffer the burden of operating a modern corporation under the crushing weight of an outmoded immigration system. I am, however, left with one tiny little question: WTF?!?!
You say that Congress can help U.S. industry meet its near-term need for qualified workers even as we build up our long-term capability to supply these workers domestically through education reform by increasing the number of H-1B visas granted each year. May I ask what you and your peers in technology leadership have been doing the past 33 years since Microsoft was founded (nearly two generations, I might point out) to build up this long-term capability? Instead of advocating year after year for more and more H-1B visas, I think your time might have been more profitably spent creating a long pipeline of qualified American-born workers.
I realize the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing admirable work regarding education, including a $1.5 billion 20 year grant to the United Negro College Fund in April 2006. But I wonder how many highly qualified American-born job candidates Microsoft turns away each year in favor of H-1B visa holders? I know that Microsoft receives hundreds of thousands of resumes each year from American-born technologists. They can't all be incompetent products of a broken-down American education system, now can they, Bill?
Bill? Are you listening?
Respectfully yours,
edg