8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, Feb. 23, 2006
National Press Club
Washington, DC

Fortress America: Impact on Innovation and Technology
Part four of a four-part series
Presented by the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities

Welcome by Paul Igasaki, Chair, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities of the American Bar Association

Keynote Address by Michael Greco, President of the American Bar Association

Panelists:
Roger Bowen, Executive Director, American Association of University Professors

Daryl Buffenstein, Executive Director, American Immigration Lawyers Association

Bill Wulf, President, National Academy of Engineering

Debra Stewart, President, Council of Graduate Schools

Moderator:
Ben Johnson, Director, Immigration Policy Center

Paul Igasaki:

Good morning. It is a distinct pleasure today to introduce our fourth panel in our series Fortress America: A view of our immigration system, the pressing need for comprehensive and positive reforms and the threat of radical proposals that would transform immigration from the positive force that is placed throughout our history. Today’s panel will discuss how immigration plays a decisive role in American competitiveness and our innovation and technology in the age of information. As we discuss the 21 st Century and beyond we shouldn’t forget that immigration has always been the key our nation’s strength. The diversity, the constant change that immigration has brought to our culture, to our intellectual and economic life that this nation has strived and grown beyond or past limitations. One only has to think of the name Albert Einstein to remember that new blood, new intellect, has strengthened this nation and made it a beacon for the world. We hope this will always be so, but as this series has shown the future of immigration and our nation’s future are not so sure. I am Paul Igasaki, the Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities. Our Section, through our Immigration Committee, has sponsored this exceptional series. Today I am especially proud to be with the ABA and to have the honor of introducing both the ABA president and this distinguished panel. Just last week at the American Bar Association’s Midyear Meeting, our Association once again stood up for the rule of law and the importance of our Constitution, especially in perilous times. Under President Greco’s leadership, we address the need for our government to follow the law to seek warrants in conducting surveillance in this country. We also call for comprehensive immigration reform that preserves the due process, judicial review and things that have been lost in the face of the changes since 9/11. Mike will address the details here, but I just wanted to say that this Section is very proud of being part of the ABA. We are proud to be one of the homes of Mike Greco at the ABA and I am proud of our profession for showing this leadership. We also saw the ABA in Chicago support the sovereignty of native Hawaiians, the need for a federal commission to examine the on going impact of slavery following Jim Crow and a host of other proposals that our section has shown leadership on and is very pleased to keep the American Bar Association in the leadership of advancing justice in the United States of America. Today’s panel includes Bill Wulf, President of the National Academy of Engineering, Debra Stewart, President of the Council of Graduate Schools, Daryl Buffenstein, Past President of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and Roger Bowen, Executive Director of American Association of University Professors. Mike Greco comes from Wesley Mouth, Massachusetts and is a partner in Crook, Packard and Lockhart, Nicholson and Grant. He has served throughout the ABA in many capacities. He has served as President of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the New England Bar Association. I am proud to say I share a number of things with Mike. We both grew up in Illinois. We were both involved in the movement of the bar to save legal services for the poor and to increase pro-bono work by lawyers and most importantly we have both served as Chair of the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities. We are immensely proud of Mike in our Section. He is not the first in our Section to become our president, but no one surpasses what Mike has done to bring our ideals and our conscience to the heart of our profession. Mike.

Michael Greco:

Good morning everyone. Thank you, Paul, for that warm introduction. I want to begin by commending the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities for convening this series of panel discussions on immigration and I also commend the ABA Commission on dedication and its ongoing work, especially this year and I’ll talk about in a few moments. It pleases me greatly to be here to introduce this final installment in this series of important analysis of our immigration laws. And I am also pleased to have the opportunity to say a few words about the ABA’s current activities on immigration. To me, there are no more moving words than those of Emma Laserus engraved on the base of the Statue of Liberty, and you know those words. “Give me your tired, your poor, your hung masses yearning to breathe free.” America is a nation of immigrants. Immigrants built America. Immigrants have sustained America. America is strong in large part because of the flow in talented and intelligent newcomers to our shores, which has never faltered, but out laws and attitudes on immigration have been almost schizophrenic. At times we have thrown open our nation’s doors virtually without limit and other times we have tried vainly to build walls, legal and physical. Today our laws reflect that confusion. Our immigration system is failing to meet the needs of our nation. It is touting the righting and dreams of those who legitimately deserve to be here, while failing to block those who have decided to ignore our immigration laws. We need comprehensive and intelligent solutions and the ABA is taking the lead in suggesting changes. The ABA has a long history of promoting fairness, uniformity, and the preservation of due process rights in our nation’s immigration laws and policies. The ABA is now actively involved in improving our country’s immigration laws, and we have designated immigration as one of our top legislative priorities. As lawyers, our passion and desire is ensuring good laws and a working justice system, so it is deeply troubling that today’s immigration laws bare so little relation to our countries fundamental principles, economic needs or national security interests. During the past ten year the ABA has focused its energies on installing fairness and balance to immigration policies. The sweeping immigration reforms enacted by congress and implemented by the INS and other federal agencies in the mid 1990’s went too far. They stacked the deck against legal immigrants, asylum seekers and non-citizen children. In response the ABA has advocated for legislation to restore fair administrative hearings, judicial review, discretionary relief and individualized custody determinations. We have also called for the restoration of public benefits for legal permanent resident aliens and refugees. The ABA has adopted a number of policies flowing from the principle that legal immigration should be based on family unification and the economic and political interests of the United States. The lone number of visas granted for family unification and employment related immigration do not serve the interest of the United States, nor of American families or businesses. We should be encouraging legal immigration, not forcing immigrants to skirt our laws. In the wake of 9/11 we are understandably more concerned about threats to national security posed by legal and undocumented immigration. We must assure that new arrivals to our country, whether short term visitors or longer term immigrants, do not pose a threat to our nation’s safety and security, but there are ways to do so without being unduly restrictive or severe in our immigration laws or policies by reducing or shutting off the flow of much needed talent to our country. And that is the subject of today’s panel. There are too many examples of talented university and graduate school students, researchers and professionals being denied visas or reentry into the United States as a result of overly restrictive immigration laws and regulations. These policies are causing a “brain drain” that puts the United States at a serious competitive disadvantage in the global economy. Before turning to our panelists, I want to give you a very brief overview of the eight ABA immigration policies adopted by the House of Delegates last week in Chicago, which we will strongly advocate in Congress and elsewhere. First, on general immigration reform the ABA is now calling for a regulated, orderly and safe immigration system that addresses the undocumented population, the need for immigrant labor, the value of family reunification and the need for an effective enforcement strategy. Furthermore, the ABA supports efforts for undocumented laborers and future workers that include a path permanent residence, labor protections and identity and security checks. The ABA also supports making legal status available to undocumented persons who entered the U.S. as children and have significant ties to our nation. The ABA also favors a coordinated government program to teach immigrants English, prepare them for citizenship, and otherwise promote their integration into their new country. Second, in the area of the right to counsel and removal proceedings, the ABA supports making legal orientation presentations available to all people in removal proceedings as well as screening immigrants to see if legal relief might be available to them and if so referring them to pro-bono or appointed council. The ABA also supports providing council for the mentally ill in all immigration proceedings. Third, in the area of due process, the ABA urges protection throughout the immigration process. To this end the ABA is a proponent to meaningful administrative and judicial review and neutral and independent immigration judges and opposes retroactive immigration laws. The ABA in this area also supports giving immigration judges increased discretion so they may decide cases fairly and on the facts before them. Fourth, in the administration of the immigration laws, the ABA is pressing for a transparent, fair and accessible system for administering immigration laws. We support vigilance against the unauthorized practice of law, and mechanisms to ensure that immigrants do not lose their rights when they fall victim to unscrupulous lawyers or others posing as lawyers. Fifth, in the area of pardon, the ABA is calling for the expanded use of the pardon power to allow individuals with certain convictions to advert deportation in appropriate circumstances. The ABA is also calling for standards governing applications for pardon that offer specific reasonable procedures and expeditious processing, in which ensure that pardons granted for the purpose of adverting deportation satisfy federal immigration law standards. The ABA is also urging the discretionary authority be restored to courts or to an administrative agency to wave deportation where that is appropriate. Detention, the ABA opposes detention of non-citizens in removal proceedings except in extraordinary cases such as where they are a threat to national security or a substantial flight risk. The ABA also supports detention alternatives. The policy calls for prompt hearings, meaningful administrative review and judicial oversight for detainees. In the area of asylum, the ABA supports practices that ensure proper identification of asylum seekers at the border and at expedited removal proceedings. We also advocate enabling asylum officers to grant asylum in an initial review process when it is clear there is no need for additional court review and supports eliminating unduly restrictive limitations such as the one year deadline for asylum seekers to initiate claims. And finally, in the area of protecting immigrant victims of crime, the ABA supports means for victims of human trafficking, domestic violence and related crimes to obtain lawful immigration status and employment authorization and supports providing them with public benefits. Finally, we oppose apprehending victims for immigration violations where they are seeking shelter or are at the courthouse while they are seeking protection against their abusers. These new ABA policies enhance and expand the ABA’s stance on immigration reform. They are based on careful study and input from all segments of the legal profession. Let me conclude with this, my interest in these issues goes beyond my role as a lawyer. As a seven year old emigrating from Italy 56 years ago, I passed beneath the Statue of Liberty. I know the immigrants hopes and I know the immigrants promise. Like countless others, I have worked to repay this nation for its generosity in welcoming me. From personal experience I know America derives its strength from the diversity and talents from all who live in this great country. I know how important it is that all young people be given the opportunity to work hard, to develop their abilities and to contribute to the life of this nation. And I will continue to do all in my power to help ensure that the promise of equal opportunity for all is a promise that we keep for every person in America. I firmly believe we must continue to extend the same opportunities to current and future immigrants under a system that is orderly, equitable, humane and based on our national interests and needs. Each succeeding generation of immigrants from all parts of the world has enriched America. If we turn our backs on our history and tradition of welcoming talented and hard working people to our great nation we will fundamentally alter the national character in our national standing in the world. With the exception of Native Americans, everyone in America is an immigrant or a descendent of an immigrant and we must never forget that. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to our outstanding panel. Thank you for your attention.

Ben Johnson:

Thank you very much. My name is Ben Johnson. I am the Director of the Immigration Policy Center at the American Immigration Law Foundation and it’s my job really to do some introductions and then get out of the way and let some very bright people talk about this very important issue. I will say that, just briefly, the public debate about immigration has been focused almost exclusively on this subject of undocumented immigration, a very, very important issue that we confront today. Left out of the debate about immigration reform is what is happening with high skilled immigrants in this country. And it is a very different issue altogether in terms of how we address this problem. The highly skilled are certainly victims of this same dysfunction and poorly conceived policies that have come to define our immigration policies in the United States. The response is very different; when you close the door to high skilled immigrants they won’t find a way to come through the back door. They will look for the many open doors that are available to them around the world. Our question here today is to what extent is that happening in the United States today and what are the impacts on education, on research institutions and businesses in this country. So like I said, let me get out of the way of the very talented people on this subject. The first will be Debra Stewart, who is the President to the Council of Graduate Schools. Doctor Stewart is the former Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Graduate School of North Carolina State University. Doctor Stewart has also been on advisory committees with the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation and has served as a trustee for the Educational Testing Service and the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies. Following Doctor Stewart will be Bill Wulf, President of the National Academies of Engineering. Doctor Wulf was elected president to the National Academies of Engineering in 1997. Doctor Wulf is on leave for the University of Virginia, where his research spans computerized architecture, computer security, programming languages and optimizing compliers. Prior to joining UVA, Doctor Wulf founded a software company, Tartan Laboratories, based on the work he did while on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University. Doctor Wulf is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a corresponding member of the Academia de Espanola de Ingenieria and the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nobody is going to acknowledge that I got “ingenieria” right? Come on. Following Doctor Wulf will be Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors. Doctor Bowen earned his B.A. from Wabash College, his M.A. from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia. A frequent contributor to journals and newspapers, his recent publications include, Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji, Japan and Japan’s Dysfunctional Democracy. Since 1981 he has been an associate in research at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Doctor Bowen received the American Associations of University Professors Alexander Meiklejohn Award in 1998 for his defense of academic freedom. Okay, I have a bias towards Spanish, I’m sorry. Daryl Bufferstein will conclude the panel. Daryl is the Co-Chair of the Global Immigration Practice Group of Paul Hastings, a leading international law firm. Daryl is the Past National President of the Immigration Lawyers Association and served for four years as ALIA’s general counsel. He has testified on numerous occasions before Congress on business immigration issues and has written key provisions in almost every piece of business immigration legislation enacted by congress over the past 15 years. He is really an important force in the development of business immigration policies and practice. He is the founding member of and functions as counsel for the Global Personal Alliance, a consortium of internationally active companies interested in global personnel mobility. So again, let me move out of the way and begin with Doctor Stewart.

Debra Stewart:

Thank you, Ben, and thank you to the ABA for taking the time and opportunity to look this very important issue of high skills labor. I apologize in advance for my voice, but this week I do have a voice. For the last two weeks I had no voice at all. In the spring of 2004, the number of applications to U.S. graduate school dropped 28 percent and graduate deans around America knew the world had changed. We had been used to a situation where the challenge for most universities in America was to persuade admission committees to look at the very steep pile of international applications that came in every year. Recognizing that there were so many very high quality ones, you could probably just take the top third or maybe even the top quarter or maybe even just the top ten percent of those applications in some institutions and get as many fine international students as you wanted. But in the wake of 9/11 there really was a new reality in U.S. graduate education. We saw an eight percent decline in new enrollments among international students in the fall of 2002. And then on top of that a ten percent decline in the fall of 2003, and then on top of that we saw a 28 percent decline in applications in the spring of 2004. Looking at China alone, we saw a 45 percent drop in applications that spring from Chinese students. With international enrollments in graduate programs across America approaching 50 percent in engineering and 40 percent in physical sciences, with 60 percent of the Ph.D.’s awarded in the United States in engineering being awarded to international students. Declines of this magnitudes raise very serious questions about whether or not America would be able to continue its position of thought leadership in the world given the intimate relationship between graduate education and research as key drivers of the American economy, of innovation and of prosperity. Now in fact in the fall of 2005, for the first time we saw a stanching of these declines in terms of enrollment with international students. And I believe when we are able to report at the end of March what applications from internationals look like for this coming fall, I believe we are going to be able to report a turnaround in applications in an effort to begin to again increase applications from what is a fairly low point. The reversal of these very drastically negative trends, I think, are due to really two things first the Herculean efforts on the part of U.S. universities and, in all sort of dramatic ways, transform the way in which they relate to international students. I can talk about those details if anyone is interested. As well as some very serious efforts and effective efforts on the part of the federal agencies involved, Homeland Security but particularly the Department of State, to try to mediate the more negative impacts of the laws and regulations that were put into effect in the wake of 9/11. But what I would like to say today is that I actually think that the decline in applications in 2004 that we saw, those very dramatic declines, we will in future years look back on as a sort of therapeutic wakeup call to America. U.S. policy leaders and graduate education leaders, graduate schools, have certainly now woken up to the fact that the competitive advantage that the U.S. universities have had since World War II in attracting the brightest and best from around the world is absolutely not an American birthright. And, in fact, is in very much in jeopardy of slipping away. Now, in fairness, let me say we clearly do maintain some significant advantages and let me name three before I talk about what I think the largest threat is. First, we speak English. This is actually a huge advantage, because English is the language of science worldwide. Increasingly it is the language of advance knowledge worldwide and it is certainly the language of commerce and we speak English. Now of course, they also speak English in the U.K. and Australia and New Zealand, but more of us here speak English than speak English any place else in the world. So, this actually is a significant advantage. Second, is that we have a very strong tradition and culture of democracy that fosters the kind of open society that is absolutely vital to effective learning, to innovation, to creativity and to research. And that is a real draw. And finally, and perhaps most significantly, we have a large number of very fine graduate programs lodged in very strong graduate schools and a set of terrific research universities around the country. I think that it is fair to say still at this point we know how to do graduate education better than any other country in the world and that’s a huge asset. Now, that said, there are huge challenges on the horizon. The most important challenge is that we now have real competition. The world has observed the basic U.S. strategy of attracting human talent to our country through our research universities, getting them into the research and graduate programs and using that human talent to build a prosperous society. Now every major country in the world through direct government policy directives is copying the American model because it works. Details here I would be happy to fill in during discussion, but just trust me on this one. Whether you are talking about Europe, and I mean the old Europe, Australia, New Zealand, China, India, had some folks in our office this week confirming again that it is happening in Japan. All of these countries and regions of the world have developed a research based economic strategy that is crucially on developing human talent and given that no one country has enough human talent within its own borders on recruiting talent form around the world and what that means recruiting those students into the universities in these countries. It is the same students who traditionally have populated our graduate programs. This is a case in the face of the situation where in the United States we have a set of immigration policies and other practices that by design create clear hurdles for international students. There are lots of different things I could talk about here, but I am going to pick my favorite and that is how students are viewed in the immigration system. And what they have to convince us of in order to gain admission to a visa which, of course, is the prerequisite for admission to a U.S. graduate school. Despite American industries huge to obtain foreign students when they graduate from our graduate schools, international students when they apply to graduate schools in the United States are required to demonstrate it is very explicit and heartfelt intent to return to their home country immediately upon completion of their degree. And if in fact they are unable to do this they are denied a visa. In fact, the single most common reason for not getting a visa is that they can not demonstrate this or they can not pursued the counselor or the official that, that is the case. In face right now we have some legislation in the Senate that will create a new visa category for doctorial students in the stem fields. It’s called the Pace Act and it has 60 co-sponsors now in the senate. It has been has been sponsored by Senators Domenici and Bingaman. The very creation of this new category will create a positive signal to international students about our interest in attracting them into key stem fields in the United States. As part of this new visa category, the student would either have to demonstrate an interest in returning home or demonstrate an interest in securing employment in the United States, in the doctoral field that he or she is studying or has completed work and there by becoming a permanent resident. By shifting interest to this intent to stay rather than intent to return, as the value upon which an international student may put emphasis. We are not only removing a huge form of moral ambiguity, but we are also creating a situation in which we can perhaps be more effective in retaining the talent that we develop. The key question of course is whether or not the intent to return needs to be expanded more broadly, but we can talk about that later. Let me just conclude by saying that the world has changed and it’s time that public policy in the United States through the immigration system recognized that there are competitive things and we are in the battle for the brains. Through the immigration system, it may help us rather than hinder us in this immigration battle. Thank you.

Bill Wulf:

Like Debra, I am very pleased to be here today and I want to thank the ABA for raising this, what I think is an extremely important issue. I would like to use my time here to remind you of the important contributions that foreign-born students and engineers have made and continue to make in this country. We are all more prosperous and more secure because of them. Some of you will know that in October the National Academy released a report called Raising above the Gathering Storm. I didn’t bring copies with me today. Ben asked me a little too late, but it together with, by my count, about 15 other reports in the last two years from organizations as diverse as The Council on Competitiveness, The American Electronic Association, National Association of Manufacturers and not to mention Tom Friedman’s book The World is Flat all raise real concerns about the U.S. ability to compete in the 21 st Century. Among its recommendations, Rising above the Gathering Storm, points out the urgent need to for the U.S. to be able to tap into the worlds best and brightest. I am personally convinced that both security and prosperity, real security and real prosperity, come from a proper balance of keeping out those who would do use harm and welcoming those who will do us good. I think there are many, many more of the latter than the former. Throughout the last century our great successes in creating both wealth and military power have been due in large part to the fact that we welcome the best scientists and engineers from all over the world. Fifty years ago our scientific leaders came from Europe. They are the famous names like Einstein, Ferme and Teller, without whom we might never have been the first to develop the atomic bomb. Names like Framgram, without whom, we never would have ascended position in rockets and space. Flamhoman, without whom, we probably would not be the world’s leader in information technology. Today it is not just Europeans that contribute to our security and prosperity. It is names like Proveen Chouderd, who is the Director of Brookhaven National Laboratory. Cing Jing, Nobel Laureate, from Institute for Advance Study at Princeton. Or Ellious Zerhoney, who was born in Algeria and is now the Director of the National Institute of Health. Between 1980 and 2000, the percentage of Ph.D. students in engineering students employed in the United States increased from 24 percent to 37 percent. The current percentage of Ph.D. born physicists graduating with a Ph.D. is about 45 percent, for engineers it’s almost 56 percent. One-fourth of the engineering faulty in the United States was born abroad. Between 1990 and 2004, over one-third of the Nobel prizes awarded to Americans were to foreign born Americans. It’s clear we have been skimming the best and the brightest from around the world, and prospering because of it. We need these new Americans now more than ever, as other countries become more technologically capable. As they emulate the U.S. model for prosperity. If I had one message that I could get across to you this morning, it would be that it is a serious mistake to think that somehow the United States originates all of these technological ideas. There are very bright people around the world, who in my world talk very proudly about the Rad Lab at MIT. This was the lab that developed radar during World War II. Guess what? The essential technology came from the United Kingdom. At the end of World War II, the United States was a distant third in development of jet engines, behind both Germany and Russia. We succeed because we like to say our Germans, we’re better than their Germans. The World Wide Web was invented in Switzerland, not the United States. Many U.S. corporations are shifting their R&D facilities overseas and it’s not just because the labor is cheaper. It’s because in many cases the talent is better. Again, real security and real prosperity depend on a careful balance. In this case a balance of exclusion and versus welcoming, but also a balance of openness versus secrecy. Walling ourselves off from the otherwise open exchange of scientific and technological information is a recipe for being surprised and disadvantaged. To be sure, 9/11 and globalization have changed the balance point. There is good reason to fundamentally rethink our policies. However, recent policy changes related to visas, treatment of international visitors, deemed exports and so on have had a terribly chilling affect. Scientists have decided to hold their conferences in other countries, U.S. businesses have had to shift critical meeting to locations outside the country, internationally renowned scientists invited to lecture in the United States have been denied visas as recently as a week ago. If you saw the front page story in the Post this morning, a Indian scientist who happens to be president of one of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the world. He was denied a visa to come to the United States. In the meantime foreign companies, universities and governments are marketing themselves as friendlier places to do business, to get an education. In a race to attract the top international talent, we are losing ground. At the same time science and technology are growing rapidly in other parts of the world. Over 70 percent of the papers published in the American Physicists Leading Journal of Physical Review come from abroad, for example. Turn to the issue of export control. Although, it’s not strictly immigration it’s part of what is painting a picture of what used to be called a welcoming society into a xenophobic unwelcoming society. Export controls were first instituted into the United States in 1949 to keep weapon controls out of the hands of potential adversaries. In 1994, Congress passed a law which said the disclose of information about information control technology to certain foreign nationals, even if that discloser was done in the United States, was deemed to be an export of the technology itself and requires the same license. Recent reports by the Inspector Generals of U.S. Departments of Defense, Commerce and State have suggested that the implementation of the rules governing exports ought to be tightened. For example, they have suggested the exemption for basic research be altered and possibly eliminated and that the definition access to control technology be broadened. The university community is rightly concerned that a literal interpretation of the Inspector General’s suggestions would essentially exclude foreign students from participating in research, i.e. in graduate education and would require an impossibly complex system to enforce. As I said, given the 56 percent of Ph.D. students in the United States are foreign born, obviously the effect would be catastrophic. Either universities would have to eliminate the students or they would have to stop doing research in advanced areas, many of which have duel use. Many of which have potentially export control. Neither one of those alternatives strengthen the United States and I think both of them, in fact, weaken them. And finally, I got to say in a country with something like 10 million estimated illegal aliens, you really have to wonder whether erroneous visa policies or demeaning practices at our borders will deter committed trained spies or terrorist from entering the country. In the 2001 Hart Redman Commission, which in February of 2001 predicted a catastrophic terrorist attack on the U.S. and which then proposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the report says, “the inadequacies of our system of research and education pose a greater threat to the United States in national security over the next quarter century than any potential war that one could imagine. Their essential point that furthering damaging our system of research and education, including its relation to foreign born scholars is a very dangerous strategy for the United States. We still benefit from educating and employing a large fraction of world’s brightest and best engineers but that advantage is eroding under the current and proposed policies.” The international image of the United States has been one of a welcoming opportunity. We are in the process, however, of destroying that image and replacing it with one of a xenophobic, hostile nation. We are in the process of making it more likely that the worlds best and brightest will take their talents elsewhere. The policies that superficially appear to make us more secure, in fact, are having precisely the opposite effect. As I said before, real security will be only achieved with a proper balance of excluding those who will harm us and welcoming those who will do us good. By a proper balance of openness versus security, with selected thoughtful changes to U.S. policies, we can achieve both goals making our homeland safer and our economy stronger. I’d like to close with another quote from the Hart Redman report, “Second only to a weapon of mass destruction detonating an American city, we can think of nothing more dangerous than a failure to manage properly science, technology, and education for the common good over the next quarter century.” Thank you.

Roger Bowen:

My organization, the American Association of University Professors, was founded about 90 years ago by John Dewey. The purpose of the organization is to protect and defend academic freedom. Now, our primary focus, of course, is the academic freedom of American faculty, but increasingly, AAUP recognizes that academic freedom is a global issue. So if you look at our website, you will see numerous letters written by myself and others to heads of foreign countries decrying their suppression of academic freedom. Our basic point contests, I think, the topic, the theme of this meeting, “Fortress America.” Academic freedom and the academy is global. Academic freedom must be global. We cannot afford to hide, as it were, or retreat within the walls of America, because it just doesn’t work that way. We heard from Bill just now, that so many, particularly in the hard sciences faculty teaching in America are foreign born. Indeed, the numbers in the thousands, roughly 500,000 foreign students come to America each year. Precise numbers are provided by the Institute of International Education (IIE), take a look at their website. We’re sending roughly, one half of one percent of our students abroad every year in programs to encourage Americans to become less provincial, a bit more cosmopolitan and aware of the way the world works. All of this is to say, is that the academy is indeed global and our purpose, I think today, and AAUP certainly in the future is to make sure it remains an open, global academy. We are currently in a lawsuit against the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security and this will be the thrust of my remarks today to tell you a little about this lawsuit. We are suing because a visa was revoked to Tarik Ramadan, who was a Swiss citizen, who was named by Time Magazine as likely one of the one hundred top thinkers in the 21 st century. He is Muslim and had been teaching in Switzerland for a number of years in tenure position until the Joan Krock Institute for Peace at Notre Dame University offered him a name chair. Tarik Ramadan, who has lectured in the United States and visited here many many times, including imminent institutions like Princeton and Harvard just the prior year, was told after moving his furniture and moving his family to South Bend, Indiana by the American consulate in Switzerland, ‘no we changed our minds, you cannot have a visa.’ This nine days before he was to move to South Bend and take up a position. We’ve had enormous difficulty, when I say we, I mean the AAUP, the ACLU, Pan America, and the American Academy of Religion, we are jointly serving as plaintiffs in this. We’ve had an incredible time trying to get information from the real fortress America, and that is the Department of State and Homeland Security, on the reasons for denying Tarik Ramadan a visa. Written over 30 books, lectured in America many times, he is a link, it seems to me, in post 9/11 America to the Islamic world and the kind of Islamic scholar we need to learn from. Denying him access to his post at Notre Dame was stupid. He’s currently at Saint Anthony’s Oxford University. They’re quite pleased with his performance. I suspect he’ll get a permanent position and he’ll never wind up in Notre Dame. Our loss, England’s gain. The spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security identified Clause 411 out of the Patriot Act as the primary reason for disallowing Tarik Ramadan to come to the United States. That is the so-called ideological exclusion clause of the Patriot Act. Let’s think about that, ideological exclusion. If you have any understanding of the academic freedom in America, you know that in 1957, at the University of New Hampshire, a guy by the name of Paul Sweezy, an eminent Marxist professor was taken to court. It went all the way to the Supreme Court because there was a protest against his right to teach an economics course from a Marxist perspective. Of course, this was during the McCarthy period. Sweezy prevailed and the outcome of that case, which was a path breaking case, identified academic freedom in subsequent Supreme Court cases as well, as a special concern of the 1 st Amendment. But the major point it made was [that] you cannot exclude teaching and teachers based upon their ideology. The American academy is strong enough, certain enough of its own values, with enough competent scholars to, it seems to me and the AAUP, to welcome people with different ideological views, or different religious backgrounds, or different perspectives in America foreign policy as certainly Tarik Ramadan has. He is extremely critical of America’s role right now in the Middle East, the war on Iraq, the war based on a series of misrepresentations by the administration. Ramadan is opposed to that. Is that any reason to exclude him from an American classroom? We think this is Kafkaesque. Not only was he eager to come, but then not given a reason. Ideological exclusion is a remarkable concept. It’s an affront, a fundamental affront to academic freedom, where we believe all ideas deserved to be heard. In the marketplace of ideas, we as consumer of ideas will make the decision whether this idea is a good one or a poor one, whether its Tarik Ramadan’s or mines or anyone else. That’s the way freedom, academic freedom, works in this country. And one reason, as the prior speakers pointed out, we have such a strong academy. We have diversity, intellectual diversity; we welcome that, but not the Department of Homeland Security of the Department of State. Indeed, they would like to make the American academy into a fortress, where only safe ideas are allowed to be spoken inside the walls. We object to that and we take Tarik Ramadan as an example, an unfortunate example. I’ve met with my counterpart, the American Historical Association the other day, Arnita Jones here in Washington. She said can AAUP help us, we have a Bolivian scholar who got his Ph.D. from Georgetown, was offered a position by a major research institution, accepted the offer, went back to Bolivia to see his family, and then could not get a visa to return to the United States. Again, Section 411, Homeland Security, ideological exclusion. Well, who makes the judgments that which particular ideologies should be excluded? I think whoever does, indeed believe that America is a fortress or should be a fortress against ideas we find objectionable. This is an administration, in my judgment, that does not listen to criticism well, certainly does not take it well, and those who are bold enough to be outspoken and criticize administrative actions, are excluded. Again, a violation of academic freedom. I will add and end on this. Ideological exclusion is not practical. Last year, at the annual meeting of AAUP, we invited Tarik Ramadan by satellite linkup to give a speech. He did. He got a standing ovation. The American Religion Association is doing the same thing. Anyone who wishes can hear Tarik Ramadan. I communicate with him by email; I suspect the NSA is monitoring these emails. Frightening thought, but we can still communicate. The difference is this, is physically keeping Tarik Ramadan out of the United States deprives the students of Notre Dame and any others who might like to hear what he has to say about Islam post 9/11, it deprives them of that opportunity. They don’t have his email address and I doubt that he’ll be able to respond. He deserves to be in the United States and our immigration policies today are keeping some of the best and some of the brightest out of this country. They’re taking jobs elsewhere and it’s got to stop. Thank you.

Daryl Buffenstein:

I appreciate very much the chance to be here. I think what’s been very clear from the panelist so far is that our immigration is archaic and outdated and frankly; it’s getting a lot worse. It’s just not nimble enough to cater to modern realities. We face some very significant delays; American companies face some very significant delays in the ability to be able to get key specialist here for temporary assignments, up to 18 months now just to get a temporary worker here. Many, many years to get the right to keep them here, sometimes, seven to ten years, and really, what it comes down to, immigration is very motivated by issues and it gives a lot of us very visceral reactions, but basically, in my view, at least from the business perspective, it’s a jobs issue. I think we can really agree on that, it’s a jobs issue. If you look at foreign investment, for example, in almost every single state in this nation, the government spends tremendous amounts of time and money going abroad, trying to attract foreign investment, having offices. The states have offices, in key regions of the world to try and track foreign investments, manufacturing job producing investments to those states, and with those investments comes people, very few people, but enough people to bring the technology and the know-how and the money, in order to create very significant investment. If you look at places like South Carolina and Alabama where there’s been very significant job creating foreign investment, this sort of political appeal of isolationism is much less attractive. Pat Buchanan didn’t do so well in South Carolina as he did elsewhere because of the huge foreign investment in South Carolina and the significant number of jobs that were attributable to foreign investment. Ten million jobs in the United States, almost three quarters of a million jobs in California, 500,000 jobs in Texas, 470,000 in New York, very, very significant jobs. These jobs directly created by very, very few immigrants and as the economy has globalized, its’ become a compelling competitiveness issue, a compelling innovation issue. American companies can’t possibly compete without knowledge of the operating conditions of consumer preferences, of competing products abroad, of the regulatory environment in other countries. All of these things that they’ve just got to know, in order to be able to sell products and to be able to compete effectively on an international market and if we don’t have access to that talent, we’re handcuffing ourselves on the international market. It could be simple marketing knowledge, bringing someone here who’s got knowledge of making trucks for the Brazilian jungles and someone who’s got knowledge of how the product does in that market. It could be more complex in the same industry, for example, the automotive industry, fuel cell technology; a number of companies in our group are trying to bring key specialist to fuel cell technology, who have an understanding of hybrid vehicles, to be able to compete with the Japanese equivalent and really start to develop American hybrid technology. These people are stuck in the H1B cap not being able to come here for a year or eighteen months. There’s a connection between immigration and off shoring. Not the connection we heard about in the press during the presidential election a couple years ago, somehow, immigration became the bad kid in the off shoring debate, but there is a connection. If we can’t get the technology to where the manufacturing is, we’re going to have to take the manufacturing to where the technology is, and those of us who work with companies that operate globally and that operate internationally, see this happen on a daily basis. It’s just not some theory and I can give you so many examples in so many different industries, in manufacturing, in information technology, in the service industry. A company that was developing veterinary vaccines needed to bring a worker from France, that individual has particular research and development knowledge of a vaccine, bringing that person here enables the vaccine to be in the United States. Without that person, the manufacturing will have to be taken care of abroad. Now, countless companies have not been able to bring those employees to the United States because of the H1B visa cap, because of temporary visa problems. Just to give you one example, there’s a little company out West that is a very sophisticated provider of network security solutions, and post 9/11, that technology became very important in enabling agencies to be able to communicate with each other. That company managed to get a contract with the Pentagon; it’s a company with some sixty or seventy employees, a small business out West. They need an individual from the United Kingdom who has a particular knowledge of that kind of technology to lead their software development efforts. Well unfortunately, just from a timing standpoint, they identified the need to bring that individual to the United States, identified the need just when the H1B visa cap hit around August last year. That person is still in the United Kingdom, where a lot of the development is now taking place, rather than in the United States. Jobs that could have been here are now in the U.K., and there are numerous examples like that. That little company is a good example of the numbers involved here. That company has sixty or seventy employees and has no other immigrants in that company, so that’s one out of seventy. If you look at some of the biggest global companies, the ratios are pretty much the same. Companies with 60,000- 70,000 workers have maybe just a hundred or a hundred and fifty folks that are graduates of U.S. universities that have particular skill sets, or folks with foreign qualifications and foreign experience whose skills are necessary in the United States. Again, that is in every industry, investment management, for example, a company in New York that has a couple of people on H1B visas that have an understanding of the European telecom market. As markets globalize, it’s just critical to have the ability to bring people here, otherwise, we lose out to our foreign competitors. If you look at the numbers more on a macro basis, we’re talking in terms of these visas to bring key workers here. We’re talking about one-twentieth of one percent of the labor market. It’s just statistically totally insignificant, but it is important out of all proportions to their number. It’s expensive getting those folks here, let’s debunk any myth right away that American companies are looking to do is to bring cheap labor here. The fees alone, the user fees, and the educational and training fees, which provide incidentally a 150 million dollars a year for U.S. worker training, those fees amount to about $3,500 per worker if you include the fees to get the immigration service to premium process those petitions. Unfortunately, or fortunately for some of us, American companies need batteries of lawyers to be able to get the most simple procedure to get an individual into the company, into the country. There are taxes, gross up costs, resources costs of transferring someone. Companies estimate and business organizations estimate that it costs anywhere between 25,000 to 100,000 dollars a year to get a key employee to the United States and keeping the person here is a whole different ball game because of the very significant inflexibility and structural legality of the immigration laws. A judge many years ago talked about the byzantine nature of the immigration laws and said that they were like the labyrinths of ancient Crete. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals made a talk about how to understand the immigration regulations was surprising; most of it was comprehension from mullets of jargon. It really is like that. It’s very difficult to negotiate that for an individual, keeping someone here, they are subject to very significant quotas as I said before, delays of up to seven, eight, sometimes ten years in getting people here. Then of course, there are quirky, and frankly I think, discriminatory rules applied, for example, per country limitations, where no one country can send a certain amount of immigrants. If it is in our interest to bring someone here, an expert in fuel technology, but we’re unlucky enough where that person happens to be from India, well sorry, you’re going to have to wait for ten or twelve years, where as if you were from Sweden, we’d be able to let you in two or three years. It just doesn’t make any sense and it couldn’t be more idiotic. The quota issue, both on the temporary and permanent immigrant side is very, very difficult and really is huge. A quantitative rather a qualitative approach really is senseless because if the quotas been used up and then you need, for example, someone who is an expert in fuel technology, well, we’re sorry, we’ve already got our 65,000 people so you’ve got to wait for 18 months. Well, we don’t really care about the individual as much, but of course, it is important how the individuals future and career but our economic interest in getting that person here now, not in 18 months time after our competitors have already developed two more generations of product. Also, the quota’s influence timing, it means that if the companies happen to need to hire at a particular time of year when the quota’s there, you can’t hire anyone. If you’re lucky enough to have your opportunity in international commerce in a different time of the year and you need to respond to a problem then, you might be luckier. There are many other structural legalities, difficulties in extending visas, the inability to be able to extend students, getting them extensions of their practical training visas so that there is time for them to come temporary worker visas, the thing here that a number of the other panelists mentioned, which is the fact that a lot of immigrants, at least the students, have to demonstrate the intention to return. That is about as relevant to modern society as the ox cart is to the transportation industry in every single way. This provision of the law dates back to 1951, before U.S. visits, before entry level technology, before the era of homeland security, and just doesn’t make any sense at all. And, of course, post 9/11, there’s been a number of enhanced problems, difficulties in getting visas as a number of the panelists have mentioned. And really, to some extent, there’s a culture of no, a culture of no in the State Department, a culture of no at the agencies, and that’s not because the men and women who implement and administer our laws aren’t very decent people, it’s just human nature. But we need to do something about it and create a legal system that is biased in a different direction. So, in many ways we are at a crossroads. Our economy depends on getting a much better, a much more rational, a much more sensible immigration system. Hopefully, with all of us making an effort to do it, it’ll happen this year.

Ben Johnson:

As I said, this is an amazing group of panelists that we have here and there is a lot of other resources available on this. Rising above the Gathering Storm is an amazing report, something I encourage folks to take a look at it. I think it places this issue in its proper perspective and immigration is not a panacea for our ability to complete globally, but it is a critical part of the equation, and I think the report does a very good job of talking about that and accounting foreign born workers. It talks a little about the issue of the technology alert list which is a big part of the problem in terms of delays. So why don’t I open it up for any questions to see if we can have a little exchange about some of these important issues from some folks in the audience.

Questions and Answers:

Daryl Buffenstein: I have a question. If no one has a question, I’d like to ask my fellow panelists here, because I think implicit in what you said, is the fact, that not only is necessary to solve this problem of being able to get students into the United States and improve enrollment for the benefits of those students bring to us in terms of the thought and the technology, and so on, but those programs are dependent for their survival and their continued existence, is that correct?

Debra Stewart: At this point, that is absolutely the case. I mean, just to give some kind of rough numbers, twenty-five years ago, looking at science and engineering enrollment at the doctoral level, U.S. students constituted about 78 percent of the total doctoral enrollment of the science engineering technology and mathematics. Today, it’s down to about 58 percent, so the hard reality is that if we are not successful in continuing to attract strong students from around the world in stem fields, we will simply be unable to run the scientific enterprise in our country. The critical piece of information here, when you can say intent to return, for example, has been around for a long time, and yet we’ve been able to attract the best students from around the world, just these numbers I talked about, I’ll illustrate that. But what has changed is the playing field. I mean it is a much, much more competitive playing field and change will happen more quickly because in most countries around the world. One of the most wonderful things about America is, it is very difficult to direct anything to make it happen quickly in America, but one of the advantages of other countries is when there is a decision made to invest in graduate education and research as part of a national economic development strategy, it can be decided centrally and the investment can be made. That’s happening in all of those parts of the world I mentioned, and that alone, will change the competitive situation. So, it is simply the case that absent students, we simply need to work hard in developing the talent pool, but the numbers certainly aren’t there to run the enterprise at the level that we’re currently running at.

Question: (inaudible)

Daryl Buffenstein: I think it is entirely possible to have both goals and to achieve both objectives, to have family reunification has always been a cornerstone of the U.S. immigration policy and it’s critically important. Incidentally, family reunification happens to be important from the business standpoint as well. One of the absolutely absurd things about our business immigration law policy right now is that we subject families to the same quota. When we talk about there being a 140,000 slots a year for employment immigrants that includes their family and dependents. We’re telling people, you know, that you can come here, but your family is also going to be subject to a quota. Incidentally, while this long period that I talked about that it takes to get someone residence, their family is often in limbo, they can’t travel, they can’t work without all kinds of legal shenanigans. Family reunification and business immigration can go hand in hand. There’s no reason we shouldn’t accommodate both. As to whether it is a point system or not, there’s some legitimate room for debate of whether the point system really achieves the purpose that it’s set out to do. Whether that enables companies to obtain a particular individual with a particular skill set as opposed to being told, well, we let in 70,000 people who worked on the point system, now go find one of those specialists on cell technology. It’s a legitimate, reasonable idea and very consistent with family reunification.

Ben Johnson: And I think all votes rise with that tide. The truth is, if we are able to deal with some of the employment immigration issues we confront today, you’re going to find it easier to immigrate from a family perspective. We have lots of backlogs in family immigration because in many instances, you use family immigration as a proxy for employment based intents. It’s just simply easier in some instances to be able to prove a relationship with a U.S. family member than to jump through many of the hoops that we ask people to jump through from a business perspective. Now, that tends to be more true on the lower ends of the skill spectrum than on the higher end of the skill spectrum, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the system unclogging each of the parts of the system are going to help all of our particular motivations in terms of allowing people to come in through the various aspects of our system.

Question: (inaudible)

Daryl Buffenstein: There a number of different proposals in the Senate in terms of what we refer to as comprehensive immigration reform, meaning the whole big picture, and they really go towards achieving the same things. There are provisions in some that are better than provisions of others. The McCain-Kennedy proposal would really go a long way in solving the family and business immigration problems that plague us. Senator Specter has circulated a chairman’s mark that contains some skilled workers provisions that would be very helpful, but none of those bills have everything. At the moment, we’re working with a number of organizations that are interested in this, working very hard to try and get a final bill that would have a lot of those provisions. Well, what I think you need, particularly from the business side, there are two key problems and then a number of subsidiary problems. The quotas are not responsive to modern market demands. If there is going to be a quota, and frankly, there are some pretty good arguments where there shouldn’t be a quota, it should be qualitative restrictions rather than quantitative restrictions. But if there is going to be a quota and we recognize the reality the political reality that there probably will be a quota on temporary visas and a quota on immigrant visas, those quotas should be responsive to market demands and be market based so that they are collaborated with the needs of the economy. If in one year, the economy is significant, then there should be an increase in the next year, or the next quarter, or in the next month that allows the quotas to be flexible to economic need. If you look back at the quota, certainly on the H1B visas, the H1B quotas have not been used when the economy has turned down. Then the use has been very significant when the economy heats up so it is self-regulating to some extent. Making those laws more flexible that way would be critical. Also, on the immigrant side, exempting spouses and children of those key immigrants will be important. Allowing companies to bring these key science, engineering, technology, mathematics experts to the United States free of the quota, exempting them from costly and lengthy labor certification. If we already decided that they are in our national interest, it seems pointless to go and put companies through the rigor of having to demonstrate that there are labor shortages, which have already decided as a matter of policy, that there are. So, those are some of the changes and then there’s lots of little tweaks to fix the system.

Roger Bowen: One question that I was going to ask is that the State Department has really been engaged in a PR battle on this particular issue. It’s been fairly engaged in trying to put forward the appearance that we have secure borders or open doors and I’m wondering if both from the ideological perspective, as well as the more academic exchange of ideas and people perspective, is that having an impact. Are we moving away from this culture of no or is the PR process ahead of the game in terms of the impact on the ground?

Daryl Buffenstein: What I think is the PR process is a little ahead of the game. At the same time, I don’t mean to be dismissive. I think the Rice-Chertoff initiative still have to be worked out and sort of seep down to the ground in terms of the consuls and the embassies around the world and hopefully that is going to make a difference. But I think there are some structural problems, legal problems, statutory problems that have to be fixed by Congress. The presumption of immigrant intent that other panelists have mentioned being one of the critical things that have to change in a statute before attitudes can change around them.

Bill Wulf: To their credit, the State Department and the other agencies that review these visas have gotten the average processing time for students down dramatically. It’s down under two weeks at this point. What they don’t seem to quite yet get through their heads is that it is not the average time that is reported overseas. It’s the extremes, it’s the cases like Nada that couldn’t get in right. I hadn’t actually heard about this Islamic scholar before, but those are the stories that get reported and that’s what creates the image of the United States overseas. One of the things that got my attention in the report, Rising above the Gathering Storm, was an observation that there was a survey done in seventeen developing countries and a large sample size in each of the countries. The question was, “where would you recommend that your children go in order to have a better life?” And only one of those seventeen countries was the United States first. Only one of seventeen. I mean we changed the image of the United States so dramatically, so rapidly. Debra reported the dramatic decline in the number of applications for graduate schools. What we don’t have a measure of but I think is true, is the applications we are getting are not from the very best students. The very best students really have an opportunity to go just about any place and this is not shooting yourself in the foot, this is shooting yourself in the heart. It’s really, really dumb.

Ben Johnson: I think the reverse of that is true also. Not only do the really bad cases end up defining the image of the United States, but you’re really talking about its certainly important to have a good flow of talent, but when you look at how our economy has changed in the last 20 years. I mean, you can identify a relative handful of people, you’re talking about 150 people who literally change the way our economy and technology works and ways. I think one of the problems we have is that excluding one of those 150 people from the United States can have profound impacts on our economy and our exchange of ideas and the availability of other markets for them to go too, really makes this an incredibly important question. We really can’t afford to get it right, both from a public relations perspective but also from an economic development and an exchange of ideas perspective. I mean, I think bringing the resources and the attention to bear on this issue really is quite critical.

Debra Stewart: And if I could just add to that, part of what I think needs to happen is a kind of change in mindset. We have this decline after 9/11, and we indeed heard from students who received degrees in the United States went back to their home countries to become faculty, one of whom we gave an award to for something, came to a meeting and accepting the award from the Council of Graduate Schools, said that the thing that is most disheartening to him is that he became who he was, this man was from Portugal, through his five years in America was a transforming experience. He understands the fundamentals of democracy and of open society and capacity to be creative and good life and so on. And yet, when he advises his own students, he finds it extraordinarily difficult to persuade them that the America of today is the America that he knew when he was here as a graduate student in the 1980’s and early 90’s. Now, the problem we face is that what we’re doing now is quite good, that times have certainly been brought down in terms of visa delays. We’re doing a good job on the PR front, the creation of the new science, full bright while small, we hope it will be extended as a very good PR move. Certainly, Secretary Rice has been very effective in China, and particularly China has turned around. The thing is, we just can’t get back to where we were because where we were, and we were in a situation where we were the only game in town. And the fact is, we’re not the only game in town now. So we don’t have to just get back to where we were, but we have to think much more proactively which is why some more fundamental change in the structure of the immigration system like the science, the stem doctoral visa carve out would at least be a step in the right direction.

Ben Johnson: I’ll tell you, for those of us who have been around immigration issues for awhile, that’s a scary prospect. The immigration system is set up to be a filter and we do not think about immigration as a recruitment tool, as a way to attract talent here. That kind of fundamental rethinking about our immigration system and our relationship with global markets is really going to require us to see change in attitudes towards immigration policies.

Question: (inaudible)

Debra Stewart: Across the board we have six applicants for every one admitted in contrast, to across all graduate programs, in contrast to about one out of two U.S. students. Including masters degree, education masters degrees, for example, which is sort of a natural step for a teacher to take. The large numbers are, we have about 1.4 million graduate students in the United States and masters and doctoral and 17 percent are international students. The problem is, they’re not evenly distributed across all fields so that, and in fact, interesting thing is, international students graduate at higher rates than domestic students. So, the impact is magnified, the difference between the numbers Bill Wulf gave, the percentage he gave in engineering and the percentage I gave where was I talking doctorates awarded, not doctorates enrolled and international degrees graduate and complete degrees at higher rates than U.S. students.

Daryl Buffenstein: Yeah, I was just going two add to points if I may. First, on the issue of what’s necessary to fix. Honestly, I don’t think the business community can afford, this problem has got so advanced and any solution would be so little and so late at this point, that I don’t think the business community can afford to wait a long time for comprehensive immigration reform. Comprehensive reform is controversial for a number of reasons. Not necessarily with respect to business. In fact, that’s probably the least controversial. Some band aid emergency fix is critical, even a more focused fix to allow, for example, unused visas without granting one more visa, just the visas already given in the past, allowing those to be used, allowing those to spillover from year to year or to be recaptured. That provision passed the Senate by a huge margin, 85-14 as part of the Budget Reconciliation Bill but didn’t get through the House. Some kind of provision like that is just critical if the business community is going to be able to survive in the future. So I wanted to make that point. And secondly, I want to ask you what you think what your role is, in this respect because I think you have a very, very special role and a special duty. Immigration is such a motive issue that getting the facts like LaGuardia used to say, getting the facts straight before you distort them is a difficult thing to do and a very important thing to do and I’m reminded of the study that a restrictionist group put out a little while back which was very glossy and very beautiful and obviously very expensive, called A Tale of Ten Cities. What that did was it compared the cities like Buke, Montana to cities like San Francisco and it came to the thoughtful conclusion that cities with more immigrants had more pollution and more unemployment and so on and so forth. Of course, if you substituted the phrase, reputable symphony orchestra with the word immigrant in that study, you would have found that symphony orchestras cause pollution and so on. The interesting is that one of our daily newspapers had a headline that said, ‘Study says Immigrants cause Pollution,’ and you know what not. To credit the journalists, at the bottom of the article it said that this was unproven and the connection was unproven but nobody reads to the bottom of the article, they just read to the headline. We saw an example of that just this week in connection with a study that the Department of Homeland Security put out in the L1 Visa Program, which is a program that allows international companies to bring key specialist to the United States and which is a very critical program with very small numbers of workers in it. The Department of Homeland Security was mandated to come out with a report under certain legislation in ’04 and they came out with that report. There were some vague innuendos in the report about, well the program is vulnerable to abuse and they reported some of the examiners at the immigration service that said, well we have some concerns about the program. But then they said in a very determined and unequivocal fashion in the report, the hard conclusions of the report were that the L1 visas are not used as alternatives to the H visa. That claims in the media about misuse of the L1 visa is unfounded and that basically the program had integrity and the changes made in ’04 was successful. The U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services had an appendix to the report which restated those conclusions. Well, a senior member of Congress immediately flashed off a press release saying that, obviously the program was being abused and the next thing, the Washington Times printed an article which said, ‘Manager Visas used to Circumvent Limits,’ and so in two simple steps in two simple days, the effect that the public was getting and the conclusion was the exact opposite of what the report said. How to combat that, how to deal with that, that’s in your purview and your expertise more than mine, I’d be interested in anyone’s views on that subject.

Question: (inaudible)

Ben Johnson: I’m sorry we don’t have more time to talk about those issues because you raised some very, very important points. I think very few people who are involved in this process think the culture of no emanated from the bottom up. I think it really came from the top down in terms of the repercussions of the actions that you take on the front line and how that will play out with your supervisors. I mean, it’s a lot of very understandable consternation that goes on in these environments and fear, quite frankly, about the consequences of certain actions that they take and we have armed many of these very important, we say low level, but still very critical. I mean frontline personnel, we’ve armed them with very little in the way of resources and training and salaries to do the job that really are incredibly important in this process. Many times at the end of the day, you only get one look and the one look that you get at the American immigration system is that frontline, consular officer and lots of these cases are dismissed at that level and we talked about immigration policy and fixing these problems at the macro level. That’s very important, at the policy level, at the statutory level, that’s very important. But at some point, we have to get to the very unsexy business that doesn’t make for very great press conferences, but it is critically important to talk about who is implementing these laws and are we giving them the training and the resources that they need to do the job fairly and efficiently. I think the answer to that right now is no and I think most of the folks on the panel would agree that spending time and energy and thought in making sure we have folks that are implementing these laws in the right way is critically important. So, unfortunately, with that I’m afraid we’re going to have to conclude the panel. I thank you all for coming and I thank the panelists for participating.