Several leading companies had written to President Barack Obama to lobby for increased opportunities for immigration of high-skilled workers. From a letter dated March 14, the following statement had been sent to Obama:
“One of the biggest economic challenges facing our nation is the need for more qualified, highly-skilled professionals, domestic and foreign, who can create jobs and immediately contribute to and improve our economy… As leaders of technology companies from around the country, we want to thank you for your sincere efforts in addressing high skilled immigration and we urge that you and your colleagues enact reform legislation this year”
Over 100 companies were signatories of the said letter. The prominent signatories include:
- Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook Co-founder, chairman, and CEO
- Eric Schmidt – Google Executive Chairman
- Meg Whitman – Hewlett-Packard President and CEO
- Paul Otellini – Intel CEO
- Bradford L. Smith – Microsoft General Counsel and EVP; Legal and Corporate Affairs
- Randal Stephenson – AT&T Chairman and CEO
- Marissa Mayer – Yahoo! President, Director, and CEO
The letter also noted that immigrants have founded some of the United States’ most illustrious companies. In fact, Google, Yahoo, PayPal, and eBay were all founded by immigrants.
The worry that 
more Americans will be jobless due to the influx of immigrants was also addressed in the letter. It posited that over 10,000 jobs were created by just five of the signatories (namely, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Oracle) and that the innovation that high-skilled foreign workers can bring will lead to even more jobs as the U.S. lead on technological innovation. The letter pointed out that each job opening filled out will lead to other job openings either directly or indirectly.
A copy of the letter sent to President Obama can be found here. The same letter was also sent and addressed to the House of Representatives as well as the Senate for further discussion.
What do you think of this latest tech news? Do you agree that high skilled workers from other countries should be allowed to migrate to the United States? Tell us your thoughts in the comment box below.
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