Microsoft tells lawmakers to reform high-skill immigration

The United States needs to reform its immigration system to attract and keep high-skilled workers, a top Microsoft official said.

“If done right, attracting the talents of the best and brightest from other countries can help, rather than hurt, prospects for American workers because in an innovation economy, jobs often beget jobs,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on high-skill visa programs. Smith said although the country continues to suffer from high unemployment, jobs for high-skilled technology workers are going unfilled. But Ronil Hira, a professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology, argued that foreign workers are actually displacing American workers in the technology industry.