Inherency

Current employment immigration backlogs give other countries a

significant advantage attracting highly trained workers
William A. Kandel, Immigration Policy Analyst at the Congressional Research Service
with a PhD from UChicago, and an MRP from Cornell, 3-26-2020 [“The Employment-
Based
Immigration Backlog” https://cis.org/sites/default/files/2020-03/CRS-Report-The-
Employment-Based-Immigration-Backlog.pdf ACCESSED 9-27-2020] MOM

Currently 1 million foreign workers and their family

in the United States, almost lawfully present

members have been approved and are waiting to receive lawful for, ,

permanent resident (LPR This employment-based backlog is ) status (a green card).

projected to double because foreign workers U.S. by FY2030. It exists the number of whom

employers sponsor exceeds the annual statutory green card

for green cards each year

allocation . In addition to this numerical limit, a statutory 7% per-country ceiling prevents the monopolization of employment-based green cards by a few countries. For nationals from large migrant-sending

the ceiling
countries—India and China— inordinately long waits for
numerical limit and per-country have created

employment-based green cards . New prospective immigrants entering the backlog (beneficiaries) outnumber available green cards by more than two to one.

Many Indian nationals will wait decades The backlog can have to to receive a green card.

impose significant hardship on these prospective immigrants , many of whom already reside in

It can also disadvantage U.S. employers

the United States. for attracting , relative to other countries’ employers,

highly trained workers . Solutions for addressing the employment-based backlog have been introduced in Congress. In July 2019, the House passed H.R. 1044, the Fairness for High-
Skilled Immigrants Act. Currently under consideration by the Senate (S. 386, as amended), the bill would eliminate the 7% per-country ceiling. Supporters of the bill argue it would ultimately treat all prospective immigrants more
equitably regardless of origin country. Opponents contend it would allow nationals from a few countries, and their U.S. employers, to dominate most employment-based immigration. They argue that S. 386 ignores the
fundamental issue of too few employment-based green cards for an economy that has doubled in size since Congress established the current limits in 1990. This report describes the results of a CRS analysis that projects the 10-
year impact of eliminating the 7% per country ceiling on the first three employment-based immigration categories: EB1, EB2, and EB3
 Plan

The USFG should increase employment-based LPRs eliminating 3 statutory

restrictions on legal immigration

1. Eliminating the numerical cap for employment based green cards.

2. Eliminate the H-1B visa cap.
3. Remove annual immigration restrictions on long term temporary visa
holders to obtain permanent residency status.
 Solvency

Zachary Arnold Et Al, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, September 2019,
[“Immigration Policy and the U.S. AI Sector”,
https://www.immigrationresearch.org/system/files/CSET_Immigration_Policy_and_AI
.pdf ACCESSED Oct 16, 2020] MOM

Lift restrictions on foreign talent

The solutions Congress should create in AI and other emerging fields.

new exemptions to the caps on H-1B visas and green cards for graduates
from top U.S. AI programs establish , as well as researchers, technologists, and entrepreneurs in AI disciplines.96 Alternatively, Congress could

entirely new temporary visa and green card categories for AI and other emerging technologies. Many other, less

remove the overall

strategic industries and groups of workers already benefit from special treatment of this sort.97 In addition, or as an alternative, Congress could raise or

numerical limits on employment-based green cards H-1B visas and . This would benefit AI workers along with the rest of
the noncitizen workforce. At a minimum, indexing the caps to population, economic growth, or labor market conditions would be more consistent with current demand for talent. Finally, consistent with recent bipartisan legislation,
Congress should eliminate the annual 7 percent per-country caps on green cards.98 Create opportunities through regulation. The Executive Branch can also create and expand immigration opportunities for AI talent through regulatory
policy. For example: • USCIS should update the criteria used to determine “extraordinary ability,” a prerequisite for O-1 temporary visas and EB-1 green cards, to better cover highly skilled workers, scholars, and entrepreneurs in AI
and other strategic fields.99 This would allow those individuals uncapped, renewable temporary status and faster paths to permanent residence. • The Secretary of Homeland Security should issue a determination making foreign-born
AI workers categorically eligible for “national interest waivers.” This would let those workers apply for employment-based green cards without first lining up U.S. employers to sponsor them and conduct complicated labor market
analyses on their behalf.100 In turn, it would shorten and simplify the green card process for AI talent; however, the ultimate benefit would be limited because the overall and per-country numerical caps would continue to constrain
annual numbers. • The Department of Defense should explore reopening the MAVNI accelerated naturalization program and expanding it to include immigrants with AI skills.101

S. 386 Frees up H-1B visas

Jessica M. Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies (CIS),
August 7, 2020, [“Senate Action on Big Tech Green Card Bill S.386”
https://cis.org/Vaughan/Senate-S386-HR1044-Country-Cap Accessed August 14, 2020]
MOM

Senator Lee has agreed to new provisions to secure the support of Sen. Durbin. The resulting bill goes well beyond dealing with the per country cap issue. It also creates a new
form of legal status called "early filing," allowing all those arriving on a long-term temporary visa who can get permission for an employer to sponsor them for permanent residency based

those on a long-term
on a job offer to stay, regardless of annual limits on employment green cards. Welcome, all white collar willing workers of the world! Under the bill,

temporary visa will obtain a

who can secure a job offer requiring a college degree , after a wait of 270 days, be able to three-year renewable work permit and permission to

status comparable to permanent residency with a green

travel in and out of the country. It will be a

card, but without having to wait in line or be restricted by annual

immigration limits . It will potentially apply to hundreds of thousands of people each year, including foreign students, exchange visitors, NAFTA workers, investors, and more. Supporters of
fast-tracking the visa workers who are now on the waiting list say that eliminating the per country cap is "number neutral" and will not increase the number of green cards awarded nor increase the cap on guestworkers. This is

these workers will no

true, but because it gives visa workers a no-strings work permit that is not linked to a Department of Labor-approved work arrangement and specific employer,

longer be considered part of the numerically limited H-1B program , and those visa

permits will undoubtedly attract

numbers will be available to employers to bring in new visa workers from abroad. In addition, the "early filing" work

significantly more applicants from abroad to come in on other temporary statuses that formerly offered no easy path to a green card. So
while there might not be more green cards issued, there definitely will be more foreign workers in de facto residency. In addition, the bill will drastically restructure the green card and immigrant visa distribution system to allow a
larger share of the limited visas for citizens of countries that already receive the most green cards. Citizen of India and China benefit the most, but the bill also loosens the per-country caps on family visas, which would benefit
applicants from Mexico the most. More specifically, citizens of India (and, to a much lesser extent, China) would be guaranteed 85 percent of all employment based green cards in the first year after passage, and 90 percent in the
next two years. Lately, citizens of India have been getting 20 to 25 percent of all employment green cards, with a waiting list of more than 600,000 people (including family members), according to USCIS records.

Foreign skilled workers reverse poor US tech competitiveness trends

Jerry Haar, business professor at Florida International University and global fellow of
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, June 24, 2020 [“Don’t cut H-1B
visas increase them” https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/504296-dont-cut-h-1b-
visas-increase-them accessed August 14, 2020] MOM

U.S. competitiveness is on a downward slope latest IMD . The

Competitiveness Report the primarily reason reveals a decline in ranking from #1 in 2018 to #3 in 2019 and now #10 in 2020. One of s

is the lack of technical and scientific human capital to

for the nation’s poor performance

invigorate and expand the American economy. How infuriating, outrageous and absurd then that the Trump administration
signed an order on June 22 to temporarily halt the issuance of H-1B visas (currently capped at 85,000 per year) for highly skilled workers from now through the end of the year. Several hundred thousand new immigrants were
expecting work visas in fields such as systems engineering, advanced materials, biomedical technology and cybersecurity to fuel U.S. innovation and competitiveness. The new restrictions will block anywhere from 325,000 to

by the end of the year there will be one million

525,000 immigrants and their family members. To illustrate the impact,

more computing jobs nationally than there will be graduates to fill

them The software industry is vital to the economy
. itself American , supporting 14.4 million jobs and contributing $1.6
trillion in total value-added GDP annually. Unfortunately, the nation continues to face a critical shortage of homegrown STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) professionals. Fewer and fewer U.S. students are

Even if many college students were

majoring in STEM and opting instead for fields such as business, education, political science and psychology.

interested in STEM, their high school grounding in science and math is

poor compared to students from other countries. For example, in math
U.S. teenagers rank lower than their peers in 63 other nations. So, such
students may opt out of a STEM major after low grades their freshman
year in math and science classes the measure to . Therefore, stop gap fill the needs of companies and institutions

confront a shortage of skilled workers has been the H-1B

ing a highly visa program —

program that should be expanded not curtailed but rather . Empirical evidence provides compelling evidence to do so with benefits accruing not only to U.S.
industry but to both the workforce overall and to major urban areas in particular. A recent study by UC Davis and Colgate University economists found that H-1B driven increases in STEM workers in a city were associated with
significant increases in wages of college-educated natives in general – and not just in STEM fields – and that STEM workers contributed significantly to total factory productivity growth in the U.S. and across cities. Additionally, U.S.
states with a large influx of highly educated foreign-born workers had faster growth in patenting per person and increased the probability of patenting for natives (by 18 percent) — what is known as “spillover” impacts. One bogus
argument bandied about by those who oppose immigration is that H-1B workers depress the wages of native-born workers, leading companies to give preference to them in hiring and even replace U.S. employee with H-1B
workers. But Brookings Institution researchers have found that H-1B visa holders actually earn more than comparable native-born workers and even within the same occupation and industry for workers with similar experience.
Additionally, H-1B workers in the computer field perform different tasks that complement those of native-born workers (e.g., software developers rather than analysts). These foreign workers are high quality professionals who
increase productivity for their employers and help firms and labs expand with the higher demand for natives. According to the Pew Research Center, over two-thirds of Americans believe immigrants fill the jobs Americans do not

most Americans are not technically equipped to perform the

want. One should note, too, that

highly complex work in technology that drive U.S. global

and advanced science, engineering and

competitiveness . One can only conclude that hostility to immigration in general – a partisan political ploy – is the true reason for instituting policies that actually undermine U.S. economic
security. The Council on Competitiveness, a preeminent non-partisan policy organization, has proposed nine pillars for competing in the next economy (post-COVID). Securing the nation’s capabilities in critical technologies is

prominent among them. If our nation is to innovate and compete successfully, foreign talent is indispensable. If and when immigration reform actually becomes a reality, a major increase
in H-1B visas granted annually should be a hallmark of any legislative
initiative.
 China AI Advantage

Foreign talent is the backbone of the US technological ecosystem

Martijn Rasser , et al, a Senior Fellow in the Technology and National Security Program
at CNAS. Mr. Rasser served as a senior intelligence officer and analyst at the Central
Intelligence Agency, New American Security, 12/19 [“The American AI Century”
http://files.cnas.org.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/CNAS-Tech-American-AI-
Century-DEC-2019.pdf?mtime=20191220153602 Accessed 9-18-2020, MOM
Research and Development 1) Boost yearly U.S. government funding of AI R&D to $25 billion by FY2025 § Spending at this level is realistic and doable: $25 billion is equal to less than 19 percent of total federal R&D spending in the
FY20 budget. § Basic research funding, which is foundational to game-changing technological achievements is under pressure; the U.S. government is the largest funder. 2) Incentivize private sector AI R&D with tax credits and
easing access to government datasets § America’s corporations are a key comparative advantage in sustaining overall leadership in AI. § Data scarcity is a common barrier to entry for AI researchers at universities and startups. 3)
Promote international R&D collaboration § Decades of experience show that joint work with foreign researchers can be done with great benefit and little detriment to U.S. economic and national security. Human Talent 4) Increase

To remain competitive, the United

public and private sector AI and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and skills training §

States needs a national human capital strategy for technology . 5) Increase funding

Raise the cap for H1-B

opportunities for university researchers § Federal grants to academia decreased from their 2011 peak of $45.5 billion to $40.9 billion in 2017. 6)

visas; remove the cap for advanced-degree holders entirely §

International talent remains a critical backbone of the country’s
technological ecosystem. § U.S. technology firms currently rely heavily
on temporary-hire foreign workers to fulfill critical shortages in STEM occupations. 7) Amend the
Department of Labor Schedule A occupations list to include high-skilled AI technologists § Updating the Schedule A occupations list to include high-skilled AI technologists would streamline the permanent residency sponsorship
process for employers. 8) Create a new program that couples visa grants to ten-year open-market work commitments § This approach would attract foreign students already highly predisposed to remain in the United States, target
specific AI-related disciplines, and eliminate the cost and uncertainty of extending job offers to qualified foreign nationals by removing employer sponsorship requirements. 4 The American AI Century: A Blueprint for Action 5 Illicit
Technology Transfer 9) Provide more cyber defense support to small firms § Small and medium businesses in general are more vulnerable to cyber attacks. 10)
Authorizeconsularofficialstoactonriskindicatorsforespionagetoscreenouthigh-risk individuals before they arrive § Broader screening is required beyond simply PLA-sponsored individuals or sensitive research projects because AI is
highly dual-use. 11) Improve collaboration between U.S. counterintelligence experts and universities § Associations representing U.S. universities have expressed desire for better engagement with the national security community
on counterintelligence threats, among other issues.

And the US has the influence to ensure responsible AI becomes a

global norm
Martijn Rasser , et al, a Senior Fellow in the Technology and National Security Program
at CNAS. Mr. Rasser served as a senior intelligence officer and analyst at the Central
Intelligence Agency, New American Security, 12/19 [“The American AI Century”
http://files.cnas.org.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/CNAS-Tech-American-AI-
Century-DEC-2019.pdf?mtime=20191220153602 Accessed 9-18-2020, MOM

Some fabs need to retool every 2-3 years to stay competitive and these costs are burdensome. 15) Secure semiconductor supply chains through public-private partnerships § The U.S. military and intelligence community have special needs for security that go above and beyond what is
available in commercial facilities, yet they lack the scale of demand to make a purely government-dedicated foundry possible. 16) Diversify semiconductor fabrication by creating an international fab consortium with key allies § A consortium with allies should share the cost burden of

The U S has unparalleled

building new semiconductor foundries to ensure a trusted and diverse supply chain. AI Norms 17) Lead in establishing norms for appropriate AI use § nited tates

influence and authority on the global stage and is in a unique position

to set an example for the world on how AI should and should not be
used will help to ensure responsible
. 18) Collaborate with allies and partners on norms for AI use § Alliances and partnerships with like-minded countries that
stewardship of AI becomes the global norm . 5 The American AI Century: A Blueprint for Action 6 19) Protect U.S. research from supporting human rights

violations by modernizing export controls § Due to the dual-use nature of facial recognition and other biometrics-detection technology, U.S. organizations are at risk of indirectly contributing to human rights violations through research collaborations, technology exports, and investments.
Government Readiness 20) Prioritize talent management with hiring reforms and AI-related training § Talent management in an era of AI will require attracting and retaining top talent with technical AI expertise. Government officials require training to responsibly and effectively use AI
applications, and to craft policy and inform acquisitions.

But America can no longer retain high skilled Chinese nationals

Martijn Rasser , et al, a Senior Fellow in the Technology and National Security Program
at CNAS. Mr. Rasser served as a senior intelligence officer and analyst at the Central
Intelligence Agency, New American Security, 12/19 [“The American AI Century”
http://files.cnas.org.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/CNAS-Tech-American-AI-
Century-DEC-2019.pdf?mtime=20191220153602 Accessed 9-18-2020, MOM

Issues with the available immigration pathways shape the extent to

which the United States is a beacon for highly talented individuals from
around the world, From 2005 to 2015, nearly 87 percent of including China.

Chinese doctoral students studying in the United States planned to

remain following graduation.79 Today, while a large fraction of top-tier
Chinese AI researchers stay to work at American institutions, the overall
total number of Chinese graduates remaining after graduation is
shrinking .80 In 2016 there was a nearly 57 percent growth in Chinese international students across all fields of study returning home compared to 2011 numbers.81 China’s evolving technological During a visit
to a manufacturing facility in Wisconsin President Trump signed the “Buy American and Hire American” Executive Order, which made changes to the H-1B visa program. U.S. technology companies rely heavily on H-1B visas to
recruit international talent. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) The American AI Century: A Blueprint for Action 18 18 ecosystem and the numerous obstacles to obtaining a worker visa in the United States are likely major factors in this
decline.82 Given the structure of the AI labor market and the demonstrated need signaled by employers, policies to attract and retain the next generation of top STEM researchers is essential to long-term U.S. competitiveness.

To ensure the United States attracts the best AI talent in the world,
Congress should: Reform the H-1B visa application process The U.S.
Congress should work to reform the H1-B visa process to make it more
suitable for hiring and retaining international talent . First, Congress should raise the overall cap of available H-1B
visas and remove the cap for advanced-degree holders entirely. By raising the current cap and removing the limit on advanceddegree applicants, Congress would address, partially at least, the striking imbalance between H-1B
petitions and available H-1B visas. The annual limit on H-1B visas was exceeded the past 16 years, and thus, by limiting the H-1B visa cap, the United States is arbitrarily restricting a major source of talent for U.S. companies.83 This
is an unfortunate example of government intervention in the marketplace that constrains American innovation. The exact shortage of AI technologists in the United States is difficult to quantify, but it is clear that while the number
of AI job postings continues to increase, the number of job seekers has leveled off.84 While the motivation to keep the H-1B cap low is to protect American workers, this is unneeded and detrimental for the AI and computer

America’s AI talent base

science fields, where the demand in the marketplace far outweighs the available U.S.-born researchers.85 In order to meet demand, for the upcoming

will need to draw heavily on foreign nationals

generation who choose to live and work in the United States, and

Congress should provide sufficient opportunity for U.S. companies to

recruit talent from abroad . Second, Congress should simplify the process of applying for an H-1B visa to make it easier for start-ups and smaller tech companies to hire
necessary international talent. The H-1B application process is expensive and requires extensive documentation from the applicant’s potential employer. Consequently, technology giants with greater personnel and resources—
Amazon, Microsoft, Intel, and Google—make up a significant percentage of approved H-1B petitions.86 Therefore, in addition to raising the cap on available H-1B visas and simplifying the process, Congress should earmark a
percentage of these visas for smaller technology firms and start-ups.
China is going to develop AI by recruiting foreign high-skilled workers
the US turns away:
Remco Zwetsloot and Dahlia Peterson, The Diplomat, December 31, 2019, [“The US-China
Tech Wars: China’s Immigration Disadvantage”,
https://thediplomat.com/2019/12/the-us-china-tech-wars-chinas-immigration-
disadvantage/Accessed Aug 19, 2020] MOM
China clearly appreciates its need for global talent. It is implementing immigration reforms, and it has hundreds of international talent recruitment programs that are meant to spot scientists and engineers with in-demand skills and
incentivize them to work with or for Chinese institutions. The most widely known of these is the Thousand Talents program, which launched in 2008 and has, by some estimates, thus far recruited more than 7,600 scientists and
engineers. However, illustrative of China’s struggles to tap into a truly global talent pool is the fact that nearly all of these recruits have been Chinese nationals — fewer than 400, or around 5 percent, were non-citizens. Looking
beyond talent programs, China issued only 1,576 permanent residency cards in 2016. This was more than double what it had issued the previous year, but still roughly 750 times lower than the United States’ 1.2 million. China’s
recruitment difficulties are not due to non-Chinese scientists thinking China is bad at science. In 2012, the prestigious science journal Nature asked 2,300 international (mostly Western) STEM scientists a range of questions about
their fields and careers. Almost 60 percent thought China would have the greatest impact on their fields in 2020 — far more than thought the same of the United States (36 percent). Nevertheless, only 8 percent said they would
consider moving to China, compared to 56 percent for the United States. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. Instead, the most important barriers to international talent recruitment for
China are political and cultural in nature, and many of them will be very difficult for Beijing to change. One especially important barrier is the centrality of political relationships in the Chinese workplace and the lack of merit-based
evaluation. Arriving international scientists quickly need to “learn to handle the role of politics in the life of a Chinese lab.” Many complain that “getting funded or promoted often depends on forming personal relationships with
local research administrators or party officials,” which puts foreigners — and even Chinese returnees — at a distinct disadvantage compared to locally-trained researchers. Returnees going into the private sector often face similar
issues. And while there are pockets of reform, including a small number of schools run by foreigners, the current political winds in China are blowing in the opposite direction. Other issues, such as language barriers, pervasive
internet censorship, and environmental quality also seriously complicate China’s ability to attract and retain international talent. Chemist Olaf Wiest, for example, took a part-time rather than a full-time position at Peking
University in large part due to China’s “Great Firewall.” Giulio Chiribella, an Italian physicist recruited to Tsinghua University, left after three years due to uncertainty over career stability, frustrated efforts to learn Mandarin, and
not wanting to raise a child in Beijing. Ulf Leonhardt, a prominent theoretical physicist, left South China Normal University after just one summer when he discovered that substantial portions of his grant money and partner’s salary

China’s difficulties in attracting

were being diverted by administrators. All were Thousand Talents recruits. ADVERTISEMENT China’s Future Prospects

international talent hamper its ambitions for tech leadership will nological . Even as its

Chinese leaders have identified workforce shortages

domestically-trained workforce grows, and commentators

as a long-term obstacle to success in AI key areas identified in Made in China 2025, including quantum science, biotechnology, and , where the

Shortages are acute for high-end jobs that require

talent gap is said to be 5 million. especially

extensive experience, for which candidates can generally only be found

abroad . In semiconductors, China is spending large amounts to lure experienced talent from Taiwan. A lack of international talent can also harm innovation in China. Researchers have documented a robust
relationship between international mobility and scientific productivity, attributed in large part to immigrant scientists’ ability to bring together ideas from different places, or “knowledge recombination.” Diversity is also known to
lead to better team performance on the kinds of complex, creative tasks central to success in the knowledge economy. If China continues to struggle attracting internationally mobile researchers and diverse R&D teams, it will be a
less innovative place. Chinese returnees — citizens who go abroad for study or work and then return to China — could theoretically compensate for some of these shortfalls, but it remains to be seen whether they will in practice.
Despite nearly two decades of intense recruitment efforts, stay rates among Chinese nationals getting Ph.D.s in the United States are not decreasing. Statistics on returnees show that the most talented Chinese individuals often
either do not return or do so part-time, which experts attribute mainly to workplace politics. And surveys and other studies of those who do return also show that many returnees are dissatisfied with their careers in China. The
number of Chinese students going abroad means there will always be individual examples of successful returnees, but returnees alone are unlikely to be numerous or high-quality enough to fully compensate for the lack of other
international talent. Ultimately, many of the barriers that hamper China’s international talent push are closely tied to the CCP’s insistence on tight control over all aspects of society. As long as these realities persist, China will

continue to struggle to attract both the Chinese and non-Chinese international talent it needs to fulfill its technological ambitions. Retaining America’s Talent Advantage The U S nited tates, in contrast to China,

has long been a hub for top international technical talent . Nearly half of recent American Nobel prizes in STEM fields were won
by immigrants, and immigrants also founded more than half of the country’s highest-value technology companies. Two-thirds of computer science graduate students at U.S. universities were born abroad, as were more than half of
those employed in the U.S. labor force who hold advanced degrees. Long-term stay rates for international Ph.D. graduates from U.S. STEM programs stand above 70 percent in most fields, with Chinese graduates typically staying at
rates closer to 85 percent. Those worried about China’s growing technological prowess often also lament U.S. dependence on international graduate students and workers, and call for greater domestic STEM investments. Such
investments are essential and long overdue — the number of American graduate students in computer science, for example, has barely increased since 1990. But by themselves, domestic arguments miss a fundamental

During the Cold War

demographic reality. the U S could rely , when American and Soviet population numbers were closely matched, nited tates

on a homegrown workforce
predominantly that is no longer true strategy. Today, with a rival four times its size, .

Domestic and international talent policies must go hand in hand if the

U.S. is to retain tech leadership instead of capitalizing on the
its nological position. But

U.S. immigration advantage, policymakers let the country have ’s

immigration atrophy system . Numerical caps on green cards and temporary visas have barely changed since the 1990s, while the U.S. economy has more than doubled in size. Due to

an Indian STEM Ph.D. applying for a green card would

the mounting backlogs caused by these caps, today

wait
face a 50 years time of around Trump
. Restrictions adopted in the last few years have caused further problems, leading a Chinese state-run consulting firm to conclude that “the
administration’s immigration policies have provided China opportunities to bolster
a i
its ranks of high-end talent
rtificial ntelligence .” These problems have not persisted for lack of ideas; there are many research-based templates and proposals for high-skill immigration reform. What has been
missing is a sense of urgency, and the realization that high-skill immigration reform is not just an economic issue but also — now that the United States faces a serious technology talent competitor for the first time in decades — a
national security one. Security concerns around U.S.-based Chinese researchers in dual-use fields are well-founded, but risk mitigation strategies such as building better open-source intelligence capabilities are not incompatible
with immigration reform.

China wants to put AI in charge of military decision-making

Gregory C. Allen, Former Adjunct Senior Fellow, Technology and
National Security Program, CNAS, February 6, 2019 [“Understanding
China’s AI Strategy Clues to Chinese Strategic Thinking on Artificial
Intelligence and National Security”
https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/understanding-chinas-ai-
strategy Accessed August 14, 2020] MOM
Such concerns extend to the China’s private sector. Jack Ma, the chairman of Alibaba, said explicitly in a speech at the 2019 Davos World Economic Forum that he was concerned that global competition over AI could lead to war. 14
4. Despite expressing concern on AI arms races, most of China’s leadership sees increased military usage of AI as inevitable and is aggressively pursuing it. China already exports armed autonomous platforms and surveillance AI. At
the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on October 24, 2018, Major General Ding Xiangrong, Deputy Director of the General Office of China’s Central Military Commission, gave a major speech in which he defined China’s military goals to
“narrow the gap between the Chinese military and global advanced powers” by taking advantage of the “ongoing military revolution . . . centered on information technology and intelligent technology.” Chinese military leaders
increasingly refer to intelligent or “intelligentized” (智能化) military technology as their confident expectation for the future basis of warfare. Use of the term “intelligentized” is meant to signify a new stage of military technology
beyond the current stage based on information technology.15 China’s AIDP strategy document states that China will “Promote all kinds of AI technology to become quickly embedded in the field of national defense innovation.”

a senior executive at China’s

The next day at the Xiangshan Forum, Zeng Yi, defense company third largest ,16 gave a speech in

described
which he China’s expectations for the future In
his company’s (and ) implementation of AI weapons: “ future

battlegrounds, there will be no people fighting .” Zeng predicted that by 2025 lethal autonomous weapons would be

ever-increasing military use of AI

commonplace and said that his company believes is “inevitable […] We are sure about the direction and that this is the
future.” Zeng’s comments are consistent with ongoing Chinese autonomous military vehicle development programs and China’s current approach to exports of military unmanned systems. China’s government already is exporting
many of its most advanced military aerial drones to Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. China’s government has stated that it also will export its next generation stealth drones when those are available. 17
Though many current generation drones are primarily remotely operated, Chinese officials generally expect drones and military robotics to feature ever more extensive AI and autonomous capabilities in the future. Chinese
weapons manufacturers already are selling armed drones with significant amounts of combat autonomy. Ziyan, a Chinese military drone manufacturer, has sold its Blowfish A2 model to the UAE and in November 2019 reportedly
was in negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan for Blowfish A2 sales.18 Ziyan’s website states that the 38kg Blowfish A2 “autonomously performs more complex combat missions, including fixed-point timing detection, fixed-

Beyond using AI for

range reconnaissance, and targeted precision strikes.”19 Depending on customer preferences, Ziyan offers to equip Blowfish A2 with either missiles or machine guns.

autonomous military robotics, China is interested in AI capabilities for also

military command decisionmaking . Zeng Yi expressed some remarkable opinions on this subject, stating that today “mechanized equipment is just like the

AI systems will be just like the brain of the human body

hand of the human body. In future intelligent wars, .”

AI completely change the current

Zeng also said that “Intelligence supremacy will be the core of future warfare” and that “ may

command structure to one that is dominated by an “AI , which is dominated by humans”

cluster his claims are consistent with broader thinking in

.” Zeng did not elaborate on , but they

Chinese military circles . Several months after AlphaGo’s momentous March 2016 victory over Lee Sedol, a publication by China’s Central Military Commission Joint Operations
Command Center argued that AlphaGo’s victory “demonstrated the enormous potential of artificial intelligence in combat command, program deduction, and decisionmaking.”
AI in decision-making causes nuke war
Chris Roberts, Observer, 09/25/19 [“How Artificial Intelligence Could Make a Nuclear
War More Likely” https://observer.com/2019/09/artificial-intelligence-nuclear-war-
more-likely/ Accessed Aug 18, 2020] MOM
The reason why you are alive today to read this item is that the human involved, then-Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, believed that the computer was wrong. He was right—and thus a nuclear war of the kind seen the following year on
the BBC made-for-TV movie Threads did not happen. If the computers were in charge, it likely would have, and civilization as we know it would be over. These are all objective statements. Of course, both computing power and
sophistication have grown by leaps and bounds since Ronald Reagan’s first term. Today’s average consumer smartphone is almost unfathomably more powerful than Cold War-era nuclear weapons’ command-and-control
technology. Over the next year, the Pentagon will spend $1 billion to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology that will “compete, deter and, if necessary, fight and win the wars of the future“—including, presumably, an
apocalyptic scenario of the kind Petrov, a human, averted. Among the jobs that could be outsourced to decision-making computers are the jobs of modern-day Petrovs and other humans tasked with deciding if it’s time to end
humanity with a nuclear strike. In fact, this outsourcing of command-and-control of the nuclear arsenal must happen, some policy wonks have recently argued, because both nuclear capabilities and computing power have
advanced so far that the timeframe required to assess whether a retaliatory second-strike is necessary—and then launch it—has decreased from the 20 or so minutes in Petrov’s time to perhaps the length of a Lil Nas X song.
Central to nuclear weapons policy is the concept of deterrence, or mutually-assured destruction. No nation will launch a nuclear strike because doing so would ensure that nation’s own destruction. This doctrine is essentially

what’s kept nuclear weapons out of circulation for the past 74 years. Handing over control of nukes to AI is seen by some as a

necessary adaptation to modern-day technology that would keep the Cold War-era notion of deterrence alive. So: Skynet, but for real. This is what the think-tanks, government-funded nuclear labs and college
professors who influence U.S. nuclear policy and strategy are currently pondering. Is it a good idea? There are policy wonks who believe it’s absolutely a good idea. Two of them, Adam Lowther and Curtis McGiffin, both former
military, penned a recent post for national security blog War On the Rocks arguing for an AI-controlled “fail-safe,” not unlike the “doomsday device” in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. In their view, the nuclear weapons today

AI would trigger an
fielded by the Russian Federation are too advanced for current U.S. defenses. The solution is , which be able to determine if an attack had been launched, and would

automated response even before the first nuclear detonation in a —and all

time frame much quicker the human many policy than time required for a brain to say, “Oh, shit.” But there are more

believe that ceding control of the nuclear arsenal

wonks who —a major plot-point in The Terminator that didn’t end so

is a tremendously bad idea that upends the entire doctrine of

well for humanity—

deterrence, which is what has averted a nuclear war to date.

 Remittances Advantage

High-skilled workers are comparatively more likely to send

remittances home—remittances reduce poverty, increase investment
in human capital, and reduce consumption uncertainty
Sankar Mukhopadhyay, Department of Economics, University of Nevada Reno, &
Miaomiao Zou, Institute of Urban Development, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing,
China, Journal of Developmental Studies, 2019 [“Will Skill-Based Immigration Policies
Lead to Lower Remittances? An Analysis of the Relations between Education,
Sponsorship, and Remittances”, accessed 07-08-2020
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220388.2019.1585812] mre

more and more developed countries adopt skill-based immigration

As

policies , their effects on developing countries remain unclear. Conventional wisdom suggests that the relationship between education and remittances could be shaped by sponsorship behaviour. However, to the
best of our knowledge, no study has empirically investigated this issue. In this paper, we explore whether a relationship between sponsorship and remittance exists and whether that can explain the observed association between
education and remittances. We use a DD estimator with individual FE to estimate the effect of sponsorship on remittances. Our results suggest that sponsoring a relative leads to a $565 decline in the amount remitted per year.

We show that college-educated immigrants from above average

income families are less likely to sponsor relatives suggesting that the ,

opportunity cost of migration of their relatives is relatively high . Together,

these two results suggest a positive association between education

and remittances Our extended analysis shows that alternative
.

explanations (such as higher income of more educated immigrants or

repaying implicit educational loans) cannot, by themselves, completely
explain the positive association between education and remittances . Our results

skill-based immigration policies

have important policy implications. The results suggest that may have (such as the proposed RAISE act)

some unintended consequences . While the proposed goal of the RAISE act is to promote high-skilled migration and reduce total legal immigration, both of

reducing the number of

these may have an effect on remittance. To illustrate the effect we perform a back-of-the-envelope calculation. First, the RAISE act proposes

legal immigrants by half (from 1 million per year to 540,000 per year) by restricting family preferences to immediate family members and by eliminating diversity visas. Our

estimates suggest that immigrants will send an additional $565 in

remittances this will result in about $300 million
(since they will not be able to sponsor their extended family members),

in extra remittances from the United States . However, this is the immediate impact. In the long-run, as the stock of sponsorship-
constrained immigrants grows, the effect of remittances will grow as well. In 20 years, the stock of sponsorship-constrained immigrants will grow to about 11 million. These individuals will send an additional $6 billion in

remittances. Second, currently, about 28 per cent of immigrants are college educated.24 Assuming that RAISE act (which will
promote high-skilled immigration) will double the ratio to 56 per cent,
this will result in an additional 3 million college graduates. Using our
estimate that college graduates send about $350 more in remittances
compared to those without a college degree, this will result in an
additional $1 billion in remittances , the total amount of remittances . Therefore

may be $7 billion more under the RAISE act compared to the current
scenario . To put this in perspective, in 2016 immigrants sent over $66 billion in remittances from the United States. Therefore, the extra $7 billion will represent about a 10 per cent increase in the amount

This increase in remittances may have important effects on

remitted.

developing economies remittances may reduce poverty, . Previous research has suggested that

increase investment in human capital in recipient countries, or reduce

consumption uncertainty in developing countries . For example, World Bank data25 suggests El Salvador received about
$4.6 billion (or about 7% of all remittances sent from the United States) in remittances from the United States. If El Salvador receives 7 per cent of the extra $7 billion (that would be sent if the RAISE Act is enacted), then the
increase in remittance for El Salvador will be about $490 million. However, policies such as the RAISE Act may reduce the number of immigrants from countries like El Salvador and therefore reduce the percentage of remittance
going to El Salvador. To account for that, if we assume that El Salvador will receive only 3.5 per cent (this is purely an assumption to keep the discussion tractable) of the extra $7 billion, it still translates to about $245 million.
Edwards and Ureta (2003) estimated $100 in remittances reduces the probability that a child will drop out of school by sixth grade by 54 per cent in El Salvador. Our back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the increased
remittance from the RAISE act may significantly reduce school dropout rates in countries like El Salvador. At the same time, reduced migration opportunities to the United States for low-skilled immigrants may lead to a loss of
welfare in some potential migrant families.

Remittances are a key factor in reducing poverty and income

inequality
Seyed Soroosh Azizi, Purdue University Northwest, Empirical Economics, 2019 [“The
impacts of workers’ remittances on poverty and inequality in developing countries”
accessed 07-10-2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00181-019-01764-8] mre
5.1 Impact of remittances on poverty This study closely follows the literature about the choice of the poverty measurements. Three poverty measurements are used here as dependent variables: poverty headcount, poverty gap,
and poverty severity. The estimates for the impacts of remittances on these three poverty measurements are presented in Table 2. OLS results and FE results are also provided alongside IV results for comparison purposes. In all
tables the IV model includes the fixed effects. I instrument for the possible endogeneity of remittances and control for the level of income, the Gini coefficient, and geographic region. Based on the results provided in Table 2,

workers’ remittances have a negative and significant impact on all three

poverty measurements. The results for the impact of remittances on
poverty suggest that on average, a 10% increase in per capita
remittances will lead to a 1% decrease in poverty headcount, a 1.8%
decline in poverty gap, and a 2.5% decline in poverty severity . Although the number of
observations in the impacts of remittances on poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty severity are almost the same, there is still a little variation because of missing values. The variation in the number of observations might
undermine the comparability between the impacts of remittances on these three poverty measurements. If we use identical samples to examine the impacts of remittances on poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty severity,
none of the signs or significant levels of the parameter estimates reported in Table 2 would change. However, the IV estimates for the impacts of remittances on poverty headcount would change from −0.095 to −0.11 and the IV
estimates for the impacts of remittances on poverty gap would change from −0.18 to −0.19. Based on Table 1 the mean for poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty severity is 17.5, 6.8, and 3.8. From Table 2, we know that a
10% increase in per capita remittances is associated with 0.1% fall in poverty headcount, 0.18% fall in poverty gap, and 0.25% fall in poverty severity. As we see the higher the mean of the poverty measurement, the smaller the
percentage change in it and to some extent the magnitudes are almost similar. Therefore, this similarity in the magnitudes would establish that the impacts of remittances on various poverty measurements are fairly consistent
across different specifications. Moreover, results provided in Table 2 suggest a rise in per capita GDP reduces poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty severity. Also, a rise (fall) in the Gini coefficient raises (reduces) all three
poverty measurements. Note that we examined the impacts of remittances on poverty measurements, having per capita GDP and the Gini coefficient fixed. However, as we will see in the next section, a rise in remittances can
reduce the Gini coefficient and a fall in the Gini coefficient, as indicated in Table 2, will reduce the poverty measurements. Therefore, if we do not control for the Gini coefficient, we expect more robust poverty-alleviating effect for
remittances. This is actually true as we investigate the impacts of remittances on poverty without controlling for the Gini coefficient. If we do not control for the Gini coefficient, the IV coefficients for the impacts of remittances on
poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty would be −0.24, −0.35, and −0.42, respectively; while all of them are significant even in 0.001 level. If we compare these coefficients with the IV coefficients for the impacts of
remittances on poverty stated in Table 2 (−0.095, −0.18, and −0.25), we conclude that when we do not control for the Gini coefficient, the IV coefficients are higher in absolute term. As a robustness check, I also control for

institutions and governance. The variable political stability and no violence is selected from Worldwide

Governance Indicators (WGI) and added as an explanatory variable. In all three cases of
impacts of remittances on poverty headcount, poverty gap, and poverty
severity, the parameter estimates for per capita remittances were
significant at 5% significant level . However, the magnitudes of parameter estimate in the IV-FE model were changed to −0.13,−0.22, and −0.29, respectively.
The results are reported in Table 4 The results of the impacts of remittances on poverty obtained in this paper are in line with results obtained in Adams and Page (2005) which use simple geographic distance weights as
instruments, and Gupta et al. (2009) which use three-stage least squares, as both studies find out that remittances reduce poverty headcount, poverty gap, and squared poverty gap. The results are also in line with what Barajas et

Remittances might
al. (2009) claim that remittances have a poverty-alleviating effect. However, we only focused on the direct impacts of remittances on poverty.

indirectly impact poverty as well. For example, based on a sample of

106 developing economies considered from show that 1981 to 2011, Bang et al. (2019)

remittances have a strong negative impact on state respect for physical

integrity rights. Remittances, through their negative impact on state
respect for physical integrity rights, might have a negative indirect
impact on poverty . 5.2 Impact of remittances on inequality The next question that is investigated in this paper is the impact of workers’ remittances on income inequality in developing

The most frequently used measurement of inequality is the Gini

countries.

coefficient . Table 3 presents the impacts of workers’ remittances on the Gini coefficient in developing countries. The first column of Table 3 shows the results of OLS regression (without region dummies) and
the second column of this table shows the FE results (with region dummies). The substantial increase in R-squared (from 0.09 to 0.69) indicates that regional (or country) specific effect is one of the most important factors
determining inequality. Although in most countries inequality is fairly persistent over time, it is also dependent on a number of macroeconomic factors. I instrument for the possible endogeneity of workers’ remittances and control

remittances have a
for the level of income, inflation, the ratio of broad money to GDP, per capita FDI, and geographic region. Based on the results provided in Table 3,

decreasing and significant impact on the Gini coefficient . The results provided in column 3 of Table 3

on average, a 10% increase in per capita remittances will lead to a

suggest that

0.28% decrease in the Gini coefficient. Note that per capita GDP and inflation have no impacts on the Gini coefficient, the ratio of broad money to
GDP has an increasing impact on the Gini coefficient, and per capita FDI has a decreasing impact on the Gini coefficient. Based on Table 1 the mean for per capita FDI is $119. Although the impact of per capita FDI on the Gini
coefficient is statistically significant in 5% level, a one-dollar rise in per capita FDI reduces the Gini coefficient only by 0.007 percent. As a robustness check, I drop variable inflation from the regression. Columns 4 and 5 of Table 3
show FE and IV results of the model when inflation is dropped. The parameter estimate for per capita remittances stays almost unchanged. Finally, as an additional robustness check, I drop per capita FDI as well, and based on the
results provided in the last column of Table 3, on average, a 10% increase in per capita remittances will lead to a 0.27% decrease in the Gini coefficient. The choice and order of eliminating these two variables are adopted from
backward stepwise variable elimination method. In the first step, inflation, which was not significant even in 10% level, is dropped. In the next step, out of broad money and per capita FDI, per capita FDI is eliminated because it is
less significant than the variable broad money. In the case of the impact of remittances on the Gini coefficient, as a robustness check, I also control for institutions and governance. Again, the variable political stability and no
violence is selected from WGI and added as an explanatory variable. The parameter estimate for per capita remittances was significant at 5% significant level, and its magnitude changed from −0.028 to −0.029. The results are
reported in Table 4 Since workers’ remittances reduce the Gini coefficients in developing countries, we expect a positive impact of remittances on the income share held by poor people, and a negative impact of remittances on the
income share held by the richest people. Table 5 presents FE results and Table 6 presents IV results of the impacts of remittances alongside per capita GDP, inflation, broad money, and per capita FDI on income share held by
different income quintiles as well as the poorest and richest 10%. In Table 6, I instrument for the possible endogeneity of workers’ remittances and control for the level of income, some covariates, and geographic region. Based on
the results provided in Table 6, on average, a 10% increase in per capita remittances will lead to a 1.5% increase in income share held by the poorest decile, a 1% increase in income share held by the poorest quintile, and a 0.4%
increase in income share held by the second poorest quintile. Remittances have a positive impact on the income share held by the second and third richest quintiles as well. On the other hand, a 10% increase in per capita
remittances will lead to a 0.2% decline in the income share held by the richest quintile and 0.26% decline in the income share held by the richest decile. As the results provided in Table 2 indicate on average, a 10% increase in per
capita remittances will lead to a 1%decrease in poverty headcount, a 1.8% decline in poverty gap, and a 2.5% decline in poverty severity. On the other hand, as the results provided in Table 3 indicate, on average, a 10% increase in
per capita remittances will lead to only 0.27% decrease in the Gini coefficient. Does this mean that remittances have a stronger effect on poverty than inequality? Not necessary. In order to compare the impacts of remittances on
poverty and inequality,we should notice that as is mentioned in Table 1, all three measurements of poverty and also the Gini coefficient have the same scale (between 0 and 100). However, the mean and the standard deviation of
poverty headcount are 17.5 and 20.5, respectively. Therefore, a 10% increase in remittances causes a 1% decrease in poverty headcount which is around 0.9% of one standard deviation. On the other hand, the mean and the
standard deviation of the Gini coefficient are 43 and 10, respectively. Therefore, a 10% increase in remittances causes a 0.27% decrease in the Gini coefficient which is around 1.1% of one standard deviation. This comparison
shows that remittances have almost similar standardized impacts on poverty and inequality.

Rising global inequality drives diversionary nationalism and conflict –

that goes nuclear.
Frederick Solt, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa, in
Journal of Politics, in 2011 ["Diversionary Nationalism: Economic Inequality and the
Formation of National Pride on JSTOR",
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1017/s002238161100048x, 1-9-2020] AR
 states instill the nationalist myth in their citizens to
One of the oldest theories of nationalism is that

divert their attention from great economic inequality and forestall so

pervasive unrest Because the very concept of nationalism obscures the

.

extent of inequality it is a perfect diversion and

and is a potent tool for delegitimizing calls for redistribution, ,

states should be expected to engage in more nationalist mythmaking

when inequality increases The evidence presented by this study .

supports this theory where economic inequality is greater,

: across the countries and over time,

nationalist sentiments are substantially more widespread . This result adds considerably to our
understanding of nationalism. To date, many scholars have focused on the international environment as the principal source of threats that prompt states to generate nationalism; the importance of the domestic threat posed by

domestic inequality is a far more important

economic inequality has been largely overlooked. However, at least in recent years,

stimulus for the generation of nationalist sentiments than the

international context Given that nuclear weapons rather . —either their own or their allies’—

than the mass army now serve as the primary defense of many
countries against being overrun by their enemies, perhaps this is not
surprising : nationalism-inspired mass mobilization is simply no longer as necessary for protection as it once was (see Mearsheimer 1990, 21; Posen 1993, 122–24). Another important implication of the

States may foment national pride to stem

analyses presented above is that growing economic inequality may increase ethnic conflict.

discontent with increasing inequality, but this pride can also lead to
more hostility towards immigrants and minorities . Though pride in the nation is distinct from chauvinism and
outgroup hostility, it is nevertheless closely related to these phenomena, and recent experimental research has shown that members of majority groups who express high levels of national pride can be nudged into intolerant and

by leading to the creation of more national

xenophobic responses quite easily (Li and Brewer 2004). This finding suggests that,

pride, higher levels of inequality produce environments favorable to

those who would inflame ethnic animosities Another . and perhaps even more worrisome

implication regards the likelihood of war Nationalism is frequently .

suggested as a cause of war and more national pride has been found to ,

result in a much greater demand for national security even at the

expense of civil liberties as well as preferences for “a more (Davis and Silver 2004, 36–37)

militaristic foreign affairs posture and a more interventionist role in

world politics growth in economic
” (Conover and Feldman 1987, 3). To the extent that these preferences influence policymaking, the

inequality should be expected to lead to more aggressive

over the last quarter century

foreign policies and more international conflict . If economic inequality prompts states to generate diversionary nationalism

rising inequality could make for a more dangerous

as the results presented above suggest, then

world . The results of this work also contribute to our still limited knowledge of the relationship between economic inequality and democratic politics. In particular, it helps explain the fact that, contrary to median-
 democracies with higher levels of inequality do not
voter models of redistribution (e.g., Meltzer and Richard 1981),

consistently respond with more redistribution Rather than (e.g., Bénabou 1996).

allowing redistribution to be decided through the democratic process

suggested by such models states often respond to higher levels , this work suggests that

of inequality with more nationalism . Nationalism then works to divert attention from inequality, so many citizens neither realize the extent of inequality
nor demand redistributive policies. By prompting states to promote nationalism, greater economic inequality removes the issue of redistribution from debate and therefore narrows the scope of democratic politics.