At the same time the Trump administration has launched a trade war premised, in part, on worry that China will pass the U.S. in the technologies of the future, Trump officials are guaranteeing America will not have the talent to produce such technologies by blocking the entry of foreign-born scientists and engineers. New data show that in 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) denied many more H-1B petitions and issued numerous costly Requests for Evidence to stop highly educated foreign nationals from working in America.

“Soon after Donald Trump issued the ‘Buy American and Hire American’ presidential executive order on April 18, 2017, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services started to increase both the Requests for Evidence (RFEs) and denials for H-1B petitions for high-skilled foreign-born professionals,” according to a new report from the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP). Data obtained by NFAP from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services show the impact of the administration’s efforts, particularly in the 4th quarter of Fiscal Year 2017 (which started July 1, 2017).

An analysis of the USCIS data in the report finds:

•  “The proportion of H-1B petitions denied for foreign-born professionals increased by 41% increase from the 3rd to the 4th quarter of FY 2017, rising from a denial rate of 15.9% in the 3rd quarter to 22.4% in the 4th quarter.

• “The number of Requests for Evidence in the 4th quarter of FY 2017 almost equaled the total number issued by USCIS adjudicators for the first three quarters of FY 2017 combined (63,184 vs. 63,599). Failure to comply with an adjudicator’s Request for Evidence will result in the denial of an application.

• “As a percentage of completed cases, the Request for Evidence rate was approximately 69% in the 4th quarter compared to 23% in the 3rd quarter of FY 2017.

• “Demonstrating the trend in adjudications is continuing, in the 1st quarter of FY 2018 the denial rate was 30.5% for L-1B petitions (for employees with ‘specialized knowledge’) and 29.2% in the 2nd quarter of FY 2018, both representing an increase from a denial rate of 24% for L-1B petitions in FY 2016.”

It is logical that the big increases in denials and Requests for Evidence did not happen immediately after Donald Trump took office. “It took some time to get people in to many of the key positions,” said immigration attorney Greg Siskind in an interview. “Once we saw who was being appointed, a who’s who of stars in the anti-immigration world, no one was really surprised with what we’re seeing.”

 Global Leaders in Math Education

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Making adjudications more difficult is only one facet of a broad-based administration plan to prevent high-skilled foreign nationals from working in the United States. This recent articleexplains the harsh consequences of the new USCIS policy memo on Notices to Appear, which could result in a foreign-born scientist or engineer being placed in deportation proceedings if their H-1B or other application is denied and the long processing time leaves the individual no longer still in status.

Another new policy would allow adjudicators to deny applications without providing a Request for Evidence or giving employers a chance to correct information on applications. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services also plans to prevent the spouses of many H-1B visa holders from working and to restrict or end the ability of international students to work on Optional Practical Training (OPT) after they complete their studies, even if they have degrees in science, technology engineering and math (STEM) fields. This would make it difficult or impossible for many international students to obtain H-1B status after graduating from U.S. universities, which is a longstanding goal of key Trump immigration policymakers.

And this brings us back to the Trump administration’s plans to impose tariffs on possibly all Chinese imports – an ill-conceived policy that will raise prices for American consumers and close off many export markets for U.S. producers. The administration claims a key motivation is to allow the United States to prevail in the development of the next decade’s emerging technologies and overcome “China’s stated intention of seizing economic leadership in advanced technology.”

“One target of U.S. ire is the Made-in-China 2025 program, which oversees billions of dollars in subsidies to develop champions in artificial intelligence, robotics, low-emissions vehicles and quantum computing,” writes David Lynch in the Washington Post.

If the goal is for the U.S. to “beat” China in technologies such as artificial intelligence and low-emission and autonomous vehicles, then the worst possible thing to do is what the Trump administration is doing – making it as difficult as possible for high-skilled foreign nationals, particularly international students in STEM fields, to work in the United States.

Economists Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih and Chad Sparber researched H-1B visas and found, “When we aggregate at the national level, inflows of foreign STEM workers explain between 30% and 50% of the aggregate productivity growth that took place in the United States between 1990 and 2010.” Moreover, the entry of H-1B visa holders actually increases the wages of Americans: “A 1 percentage point increase in the foreign STEM share of a city’s total employment increased the wage growth of native college-educated labor by about 7–8 percentage points and the wage growth of non-college-educated natives by 3–4 percentage points.”

Even though approximately 80% of full-time graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are international students and provide enormous benefits to the country, the Trump administration would like nothing better than to prevent these talented individuals from working in America. It would be difficult to craft a more misguided policy.

7/27/2018

在洛杉磯生活了六年的中國留學生索菲正收拾行裝，準備在8月10日回中國；回去哪裡、做什麼工作，她還不確定，「但不會繼續待在美國了。」

「美國之音」26日報導，在廣東出生、長大的索菲，兩年前畢業於洛杉磯加大(UCLA)，這是美西最有名的大學之一，也是亞裔學生最多的大學之一；南加州有著暖和的氣候、金色的沙灘和正宗的中國食物，讓UCLA更加受中國留學生青睞。

報導引述索菲說，「我本來打算抽中簽證後，一邊上班一邊讀研，但現在看來沒有可能了。」

索菲說的簽證是發給外國人的H-1B工作簽證，通常需要雇主擔保，並向移民局提出申請；2013年開始，每年H-1B申請數都遠超出上限，所以移民局會以抽籤的方式決定受理哪些人的申請，其餘的申請將被退回；最近三年，大學本科畢業生的中籤率只有不到30%。

索菲去年沒有中籤，今年她抽中了；在很多人看來，中籤通常意味著簽證十拿九穩，剩下都只是「走程序的事」。索菲也覺得，移民局沒有理由拒絕她的申請。

她在UCLA學的是數學和統計；曾在「四大」會計師事務所中的畢馬威(KPMG)審計部實習；畢業後加入了一家中型科技公司，擔任商業分析師。

讓她想不到的是，移民局5月來信要她補材料(Request for Evidence，簡稱RFE)，包括補交畢業證複印件、公司職位描述及老闆的推薦信。

而這三份文件中，除老闆的推薦信外，另兩份她在第一次申請時就全部遞交過了；她覺得移民局要不是弄丟了材料，就是在「刁難」她。

根據華府研究機構全國政策國家基金會(National Foundation for American Policy)公布的報告，自川普總統上任以來，移民局要求工作簽證申請者補件的情況越來越普遍；到去年第四季，有68.9%的申請都被要求補件；被拒簽者多達22.4%，比第三季多6.5個百分點，增幅41%。

索菲在6月中，即補交材料遞上去一個月後，收到移民局信函，她的簽證申請被拒絕了；移民局的理由是，她的「專業與工作不相符」。

但索菲的律師喬．戈德斯坦(Joe Goldstein)受訪表示，學統計和數學專業的畢業生去做商業分析師、數據分析師很普遍，索菲被以學非所用的理由拒簽，聞所未聞。

不過報導指出，像索菲這樣意外被拒簽的中國留學生越來越多。去年從密西根州立大學畢業的中國學生Sean目前在連鎖百貨店Ross的舊金山灣區辦公室工作。統計專業的Sean在校期間副修了電腦，在Ross擔任互聯網前端工程師。他的H-1B簽證申請在今年7月初也被移民局以專業與工作責任不符拒絕。

全國政策國家基金會報告指出，與歐巴馬政府時期相比，目前各類工作簽證的拒簽率都上升，其中一些國家(如印度)的申請人被要求補件和拒簽的比率更高；中國申請者拒簽數據不詳。

報告指出，美國大學中目前81%的電氣工程專業研究生和79%的電腦專業研究生都是國際學生，「從現在的政策看，本屆政府明顯不希望這些人留在美國工作。」

「反對移民將使美國失去人才。」基金會負責人史圖爾特．安德森(Stuart Anderson)表示： 「在資本超過10億元的87家美國公司裡，有一半以上都是移民創立的。」