Immigrants can be a ‘godsend' for US firms, but policy logjam blocks access

Victims of a broken immigration system, U.S.-based companies lose business and qualified, "highly skilled" immigrant talent to other regional markets while waiting for work visas, says an immigration attorney.

In the plastics industry, foreign-national labor "provides key contributions" to the medical and automotive markets, Anthony Mosko, senior attorney for automotive and engineering at immigration law firm Ellis Porter, said in an interview with Plastics News. "A lot of U.S. companies are dependent on these … personnel."

Ellis Porter represents companies hiring foreign nationals, either on short-term work visas or sponsoring them for permanent residency in the U.S., Mosko said.

Obstacles like "long visa wait times or appropriate visa categories … make it difficult for these industries to continue in the U.S. … if our immigration system doesn't adapt and evolve with how global business and education is being shaped," he said.

U.S. consulates and U.S. citizenship and immigration services are "still seeing the effects" of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mosko said, with understaffed government agencies unable to turn applications around quickly.

At New York-based blow molder Confer Plastics Inc., immigrant workers' worldviews contribute to their work ethic, President Bob Confer told PN. Of its 155 employees, 1 in 5 are foreign-born, Confer said, representing 12 different nations of origin, including Sudan, Jamaica, Bosnia and Myanmar, among others.

"I've always seen working with immigrants and refugees as a part of who we are," he said. "A lot of them believe they have to work nonstop. [It's] a struggle trying to get them to take vacations."

The immigrant populations Confer employs also have high retention rates at the company, Confer added.

Delays in work-visa processing, or finding appropriate authorized statuses for prospective foreign-national employees, can "push projects back," Mosko said.

"The project shuts down in the U.S. or it gets transferred overseas … where there aren't such restrictions on who can be hired or who can work in that country. That hurts domestic workers in the U.S. … and creates adverse circumstances for U.S. companies," he said.

While "it's easier for U.S. companies to hire someone domestically, the issue is there's a shortage of qualified U.S. workers for these positions in global mobility," specifically in electrical engineering, chemical engineering and material sciences, he said. "There's tremendous need for engineers and other specialists in these fields.

"Unless [the prospective employees] work for your affiliate in their country, it's extremely difficult to just hire them and bring them over on a work visa," Mosko said, adding that work visas have "very limited availability" and "intracompany transfer visas" are issued in "limited circumstances."

When companies can't find domestic workers that meet the minimum requirements for those roles, he said, "they'll either have to scale back operations … [or] turn down work because they're not confident they have the labor force to meet these demands."

"There is no catch-all, general professional work visa [and] no streamlined process," he said. "Our system hasn't evolved in decades. It hasn't really targeted certain industries where there's a true shortage of professional workers, and it hasn't made options available."

The H-1B visa lottery, which allows U.S. companies to employ foreign workers in specialty occupations, Mosko said, is limited to about 65,000-85,000 visas per fiscal year. Demand for the visa "exceeds 700,000 registrants" per year, he added.

Canada has been making immigration reforms to recruit about 40,000 foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities between 2017 and 2021, according to analysis by the Washington-based Niskanen Center, a think tank that advocates for immigration reform.

"Canada's been the beneficiary of a lot of the shortcomings in our own immigration system," Mosko said. "We need immigration reform badly."

Student visas only allow for up to three years of work-authorized status after graduation, he said, making it difficult for recently graduated foreign-born students to find "more long-term solutions."

As of 2019, about 23 percent of all STEM workers in the U.S. were immigrants, according to a fact sheet by the American Immigration Council. More than 70 percent of all U.S. graduate students in manufacturing engineering, electrical engineering, and computer and information sciences are international students, a 2021 brief by the National Foundation for American Policy said.

Ellis Porter's clients are trying to hire these recent graduates with advanced degrees who also contribute to the funding of higher education for U.S. citizens, Mosko added. "They're not eligible for financial aid, and they're paying the maximum cost in tuition," he said. "That funds scholarship for others," while the lack of immigration reform "harms U.S. universities as well."

"[Immigrants] have the drive, [and] obviously they have the resources because they went to school in the U.S. where education is extremely expensive," Mosko said. "They bring a wealth of expertise and viewpoints and work ethic that is really needed in U.S. industries.

"The foreign-national labor force is key to a growing economy," he said. "There are certain tools that foreign-national employees bring to the table [like] diverse skill sets based on their own education and unique experiences. They bring invaluable contributions."

"The confusion happening at the border is making things increasingly difficult for those, like myself, who work with refugees and immigrants," Confer said.

The public's focus on the southern border neglects "immigrants elsewhere," Confer added. Immigrants are "godsends for the community and the company. But now that pipeline … has been shut down," creating "heartbreak" for some of Confer Plastic's foreign-national employees.

One of the company's employees spent his summer in Sudan, "moving his mother out of the city of Khartoum in order to ensure she was safe" from violent conflict in the region, he said. "But he couldn't bring her to the U.S. … Now he's got to worry about her all the time.

"That also means we'll probably lose him a few times a year for the foreseeable future as he tries to take care of her and make sure she's safe," Confer added.

"The same holds true for my co-workers from Myanmar," Confer said. "They can't bring any family here to make sure that they're safe."

Confer Plastics offers its employees support by working with the U.S. Department of State to find loved ones overseas they may have lost contact with. It also added a "prayer and peace space" to its factory for its employees to use when they're experiencing distress over the safety of their loved ones.

The lack of immigration reform "disrespects" the 70,000 Afghans who evacuated the country and relocated to the U.S. when it pulled its military from the region in 2021, Confer said.

"They haven't been granted anything from working papers to a fast track to citizenship, and they're stuck in limbo, which is almost … punishing them," he said.

"With [all the conflict] that's happening overseas … we need to do something at the federal level to make it so employers can work with [immigrants]," he said.

While the growing number of migrants seeking entry into the U.S. at its border with Mexico "might not have a direct impact" on distinct work visas for qualified foreign nationals, "the problems at the border create this hysteria within the general public," Mosko said.

Immigration reform isn't "a popular public opinion … because of what they might see on the news portrayed by certain political figures or media sources," he said.

Companies aren't hiring immigrants for these "vital" positions to save money, Mosko said. "They're paying highly competitive salaries.

"Of course the people at the border need help. … We need a more humane immigration policy," he added. "To put up barbed wire and keep people out, that's really not the solution. And obviously at the same time we need more modern work visa options … not just from a humanitarian standpoint.

"We need more lobbying from executives of the companies to explain to politicians in Congress that U.S. industries are in dire need of these highly qualified individuals," Mosko said.

"In addition to lobbying," he said, "just a general education and understanding [is needed] … as to how the process works and how limited it is when you consider the current landscape of global business."