Free traders will never answer this... if immigrants are needed here...

[leveymg]

147. If you think 10 million US jobs is "a pittance", then you may just have a point.

But, nobody claimed that Trade in Services is the entire solution to the enormous problems with the imbalance in Trade in Goods. They are different issues, as much as you appear to conflate the two. You won't find a solution to the lack of an industrial policy in this country, and of capital offshoring and refusal to reinvest by US-based multinationals, by restricting nonimmigrant workers. Quite the opposite - these same companies, if unable to transfer international personnel and access global talent will simply move more of their operations offshore. Is that what you want?

At least, those who work here live here, spend most of their earnings here. At this point, it's obscenely easy and cheap to offshore jobs and profits. If you're concerned about maintaining US employment, that's where one can concentrate and obtain gains without the unintended consequence of attacking the last sector of global trade where the US maintains a substantial advantage.

BTW: there's a statutory cap on H-1Bs: 65K plus 20K for advanced degree holders. Universities and gov't research institutions are exempt from the cap. The H2A and H2B programs are for lower-skilled seasonal and agricultural workers, and that involves a different set of issues. The H3 trainee program is small. H-1 spouses cannot work - L-1 Intracompany spouses get work authorization.

By far, the biggest non-immigrant group are Canadians professionals who enter on TN visas - about 800,000 last year, but there are many US workers in Canada these days. Do you want to close the Canadian border?