Law, College of
Nebraska Law Bulletin (Selected Issues)
Date of this Version
9-18-2022
Document Type
Article
Citation
Nebraska Law Bulletin (September 18, 2022)
Abstract
It is difficult to overstate the information technology sector’s role in the United States economy. According to the Brookings Institute, “(i)n 2017 alone, the IT industry’s contribution to real economic output in the United States exceeded that of the professional and business services, finance and insurance, and manufacturing sectors.” The Covid-19 pandemic further accelerated this growth–49 members of the Fortune 500 are now tech companies.
In the battle for economic and national-security supremacy, Chinese-born students and scientists studying and working at United States’ universities have emerged as a singular vital component in each nation's strategic ambitions. In the United States, foreign-born graduates of computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) graduate programs constitute a majority of the future CS workforce. There is an acute shortage of computer science talent within the United States, making retention of foreign-born, namely Chinese-born, graduates essential.
The United States must provide foreign-born STEM graduates with a high degree of confidence that they may remain in the country long-term, rather than sent back home after their short-term visas expire. The current immigration system provides no such certainty. Chinese-born STEM graduates are left to hope for the best in an inadequate system of H-1B visa lotteries, residency authorizations tied to specific employers, and stop-gap STEM OPT work authorizations subject to political whims. Our system fails to recognize the outsized pressures Chinese STEM graduates face from their country of origin, as well as the critical role foreign-born STEM graduates play in the United States’ national interest. This article seeks to explain the importance of Chinese-born STEM grads to the US economy, and how current US immigration policy is failing the country and these would-be immigrants.
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