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Cledor Ndiaye, MPA Candidate Humphrey School of Public Affairs
Why the immigration of High Skilled workers in the United States is raising so much
passion among stakeholders and what does the future hold for the thousands of new
immigrants who arrived on the Unites Shores every year?
A qualitative Study on the issue of the Immigration of High Skilled workers in the US.
Abstract
The Immigration of High Skills worker in the US is an issue that has raised the interest of many.
In this paper, we will present the opinions of some High Skilled Immigrants that we have
interviewed. The study reveals that almost all the people interviewed moved in the US for the
hope to exercise their skills and get a better paid job than in their country of origin. However,
their dream rarely come true because of many roadblocks such as language barrier, lack of trust
in their education, stereotypes, discrimination to name a few. In the political arena, the issue of
Immigration is never absent and always shows how divided people are on this issue.
Introduction
The United States of America has always been and will, most likely for many years to come,
continue to be the destination of choice for many highly qualified workers around the world.
Hundreds of engineers, doctors, scientist, lawyers ect arrive on our shores every day. These
individuals, as the other categories of immigrants are in search of better work opportunities,
better salaries and better working conditions. The journey in the US, however, is not always an
easy one for these “dreamers”. Too often, they live in frustration because the standard of living
they have dreamed about when preparing for the trip is most of the time hard to come by. In most
cases they end up doing odds job that they never imagined doing and this can last for many
years. Some end up going back to school for the same education they got in their country of
origin or just chose another career path in order to get a decent job. The settlement is even more
difficult for the immigrants whose first language is not English. This category struggles a lot.

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In order to conduct our study we have explored some literature pertaining to the issue and also
conducted interviews of former high skilled immigrants. We have analyzed the data collected
and came up with some findings for our research project.
Literature Review
Researches have shown that, even though the United States Immigration policies aim at
attracting the best workforce from around the world, there is evidence that what was supposed to
be a “brain drain” is now becoming a “brain waste” because many of these individuals are
underused or not used at all (Ken Stier, 2014). When a highly qualified immigrant ends up doing
a low skilled job, for example an immigrant engineer making a living by driving a taxi, that is a
huge loss for him or her and the entire economy (Paul Feltman, 2014). Not considering this
pool of talents reduces the productivity of the U.S economy and the U.S consumers also lose the
opportunity to benefit from the services that these workers could have provided. Besides, these
consumers, who are also taxpayers, lose out because these highly skilled immigrants that do low
earning jobs most likely end up in public assistance that is paid by taxpayers money. (Madeleine
Sumption, 2014).
The situation of unemployment or “mal-employment” is more prevalent in some States like
Massachusetts where, in 2011, 46,000 high skilled immigrants were in this situation and even
worse is the situation of immigrants whose college degrees are from Africa or Latin
America(Integration Institute: Workforce Development, 2015). Yet, there is some research that
relates that immigrants with low English Skills have choices when it comes to choosing a career
because some high skills immigrants can have occupation such as computers experts or
engineering occupations where English communication skills are not very important (Barry R.
Chiswick, Sarinda Taengnoi, 2007). Another major challenge pertaining to immigration of High
Skilled worker is obtaining documentation. A study has revealed that many skilled foreign
nationals from China or India can wait 6 to 7 years or more before obtaining a visa
There is evidence that the struggle of High Skilled immigrants is due to the political positions of
some legislators. They advocate for national preference when it comes to hiring. They are
proposing reducing or even eliminating the H-1B visas by putting restrictions on the issuances of
these and enacting some dissuasive measures to discourage companies from hiring workers from

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abroad for jobs that can be done by national (Bob Cooper, Daryl Buffenstein, Kevin Miner,
2013) . For some others, H- 1B visas are a threat to the US nationals that could lose their job
(Senator Charles E. Grassley, 2014).
Even though they may be approved or disapproved by some politicians or interest groups, there
are legislations in place to deal with the Immigration of High Skilled immigrants. The
Immigration Act of 1990 is one of them. Most of these laws are based on desirability that is the
basis of The Employment Based System that sets 5 categories EB1 to EB5. This is known as the
Point System which admit immigrants to fill the shortages left by the domestic labor workforce
(Carla Tabag, 2013).Talking about desirability, it is worth mentioning that there is a particular
group of immigrants that are highly preferred by the U.S government. They are the so called
“STEM” workers. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics which are
considered to be the main catalyst of 21st century innovation economy (Senator Hon J.
Rockefeller, 2013).
There are more initiatives taken by the US government to help immigrants. Measures like
granting H-1B visas to the wives of skilled immigrants to allow them to work in the US (Julia
Preston, 2014). Several studies have proven that a receiving country can benefit a lot from the
immigration of skilled worker because they earn more, start their own business pay higher taxes
and require fewer social services that less skilled immigrants.
However, these initiatives aimed at tackling the issue of immigration have not yield the
expectected outcomes. Therefore more steps are to be taken to address this political, social and
economic issue. In that respect the I-Squared Act of 2013 which would increase the allotment of
H- 1BN visas has been sponsored in May 2013 by twenty five U.S. Senators (One hundred
thirteen congress first session, 2013).
Another new initiative is the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 that aims at facilitating the
procedures and putting in place rules that are fair and give the same chance to any skilled
immigrants despite their country of origin, the size of their family, their employment status etc.
(Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, 2013)
Reviewing this literature about the issue of the Immigration of High Skilled workers reveals that
most of these ideas and statements come from legislators and politicians which make some of

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them biased. Therefore, there is the necessity to hear from the immigrants themselves about their
perceptions of this matter. In my research work in which I will use qualitative data, we have
interviewed High Skilled immigrant workers in order to hear their point of view.
Research Methods
To conduct our research, we have used the qualitative method and the exploratory process in
order to identify the root causes of the issue of Immigration of High skilled immigrants in the
US. In order to avoid interviewing a vulnerable population, we have chosen to interview former
immigrants that have completely settled and are doing quite well. A total of eight people were
interviewed. Four interviews were conducted at a café outside the interviewees’ workplace, four
at the interviewees’ homes in the presence of their family members. We asked interviewees if
they were comfortable being interviewed in front of their family members and the answers were
positive. One Interview was conducted by phone because the interviewee now lives out of the
US. He had decided to go back to his country of origin.
With the goals of trying to find out some ways that could help improve the living conditions of
high skilled immigrants in the US and encourage policy change discussion around the issue, we
have opted for a deductive approach for our study.
To collect data we have created an interview questionnaire targeting the areas we needed
information on. Initially we chose to record the interviews. However, the first three persons
interviewed refused to be recorded. So, we decided to change strategy by adopting the note
taking method. The questionnaire was developed by researcher and was approved by the
researcher’s professor. The questionnaire can be found in the Appendix.
Discussion
The synthesis of our data collection shows a general trend which is that High Skills Immigrants
in the United States struggle a lot to find a job in their field of competence. If they are lucky,
they can find a job in the same area but they will have to accept to work at lower level in the

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hierarchy of if they are offered a manager position, they will have to accept to be paid much less
than their native colleagues. One Dentist from Lithuania that we interviewed said that she had to
go back to school to become a dental hygienist because no clinic wanted to hire her. She also
complained about the fact that there is a big problem of trust because, even though she had her
Dentist Degree from Lithuania evaluated by the WES1 (World Education Services), she still
could not even get an internship position as a dentist.
Even though we cannot minimize the struggles of this Lithuanian dentist; our study reveals that
she is better off than many other immigrants. One of the interviewees who used to be an engineer
in his home country of Egypt said that he had to work as a janitor for 3 years before getting a job
as a security guard and then ended up as a Lead in a manufacturing company. When we asked
him why he took the job of janitor, he said that with a wife and four children to feed, savings
running out and no decent job in the horizon, he had to take any job that came his way. He also
mentioned that race and religion “seem to play an important role” in the hiring process in the
United States. He explained that one friend of his from a European country with the same type of
background did not find it hard to get a decent job. For him, the fact that he is not white and is a
Muslim prevented him from being even considered for interviews. He said that, at some point, he
even thought about changing his name to an American name just to get interviews.
Another finding that is quite interesting is the fact that, based on some responses from
interviewees, no matter your qualifications, the country you came from plays an important part in
your chances to be considered for a job. One interviewee from the Mali (West Africa) who had
worked for over five years at France Telecom2 in France as an engineer said that the fact that he
is from Africa was a “disqualifying factor” in his job hunt. He said that he knows an engineer
native of Singapore who used to be his coworker at France Telecom. This Singaporean, he said
did not find it difficult to get hired in the Telecommunication field. Our interviewee explained
that this is due to the fact that Singapore is among the emerging nations. It belongs to the group
of countries that used to be called “the economic dragons” of Asia.
One High Skilled immigrant from Ukraine who we interviewed by phone said that he had to
return to his home country because he felt like immigrating in the US was the biggest mistake of
1 WES is the largestnon-profitcredential evaluation servicein North America
2 FranceTelecom is one of the most important Telecommunication Company in France.

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his life. He complained about discrimination and lack of trust of American employers’ vis- a -vis
High Skilled immigrants.
Even though the journey has been difficult for many of the immigrants that we interviewed, there
is general agreement that High Skilled immigrants that manage to make it in the American Job
Market don’t regret to have made the trip to the US. They earn more money, can afford to send
their kids to the best universities in the World and still can support relatives still living in their
country of origin. One of the research scientist said that he was impressed by the quality of the
tools available to him compared to his country of origin. Salary wise, he is now making 4 times
what he used to make in his country. He said that the US is now his home.
Conclusion
The study reveals that the immigration of High Skilled workers in the US is a major problem. In
our literature review we have found that there is an Immigration Innovation Act of 2013.
However, despite that legislative effort of the US government, many High Skilled immigrants
are still struggling to get a decent job. We were able to interviews eight former immigrants and
all agree that the US job market has not been friendly to them. They had worked very hard to
realize their dream of integrating some kind of way the US job market. Some with more luck
than the others. Too often their dreams are broken and they have to swallow “the bitter pill” of
taking any job that comes their way.
According to the people that we interviewed, national preference makes sense but still the United
States is a nation of immigrants and, for that reason, the job market should be friendlier to High
Skilled immigrants no matter where they come from. Because of the lack “equality if treatment”
that interviewees complained about, the US may be missing the opportunity of having the US
economy and society benefit from the knowhow of these talented workers as Madeleine
Sumption remarks it.(Madeleine Sumption, 2014)
Based on the observations of the interviewees, we believe that further study should be conducted
in order to come out with a way to help other High Skilled immigrants that are not from the
“preferred countries” to have the chance to compete with others. Some ways to perform a skills

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assessment of High Skilled immigrant in partnership with some high tech companies for example
could be explored. Coming from an emerging country should not be a “pass” to the high skilled
job market. This maybe a false assumption that needs to be corrected if the US wants to win the
“brain drain”battle and remain the destination of choice of many High Skilled immigrants.
Maybe many people don’t know this, but one of the Astrophysicists that worked on the NASA3
exploration of planet Mars with the Pathfinder and Sojourner projects was a Nuclear Scientist
from Mali (West Africa). His name is Cheikh Modibo Diara. He is currently the head of
Microsoft for West, East and Central Africa).
3NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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References
o Stier Ken (2014). Ask the expert: Why should American care about employing
immigrants?
o Feltman Paul, (2014) : The promise of America is that we’re a land of opportunity for
immigrants.
o Sumption Madeleine , (2014): Skilled Immigrants in the Global Economy: Prospects for
International Cooperation on Recognition of Foreign Qualifications
o The Integration Institute: Workforce Development, (2015)
o Barry R., Chiswick, Sarinda Taengnoi.(2007) The Institute for the Study of Labor.
o Cooper Bob, Buffenstein Daryl, Miner Kevin. Annual Conference on Immigration Law.
(2013)
o Senator Grassley Charles (R- Iowa). Senate Judiciary Committee. (2014)
o Senator Rockefeller Hon J.(2013). The role of immigrants in America’s innovation
economy.
o Preston Julia. (2015)Large Companies Game H-1B Visa Program, Costing the U.S.
Jobs.
o One Hundred thirteen congress first session. (2013)
o Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. (2013). The Ever Changing World Of Global
Business Immigration - What You Need to Know For 2013

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Appendix
Interview Guide
Research Question:
Why the immigration of High Skilled workers in the United States is raising so much passion
among stakeholders and what does the future hold for the thousands of new immigrants who
arrived on the US shores every year?
For this research project we will be conducting interviews of key informants using the
exploratory approach.
Exploratory Interview guide for High Skilled Immigrant workers
Introduction:
My name is Cledor Ndiaye; I am a student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs of the
University of Minnesota. As part of my curriculum, I am conducting a study on the High Skilled
Immigrants in the United States. As an immigrant in the US, your input will help have a better
understanding of the situation of High-skilled immigrants in the United States. This interview is
anonymous and the information gathered will be treated with confidentiality. Would you mind if
I record it?
Question Guide:
1. Could you please tell me what is your country of origin and what brought you in the
United States?
2. Was moving to the U.S.A an easy decision to make? Did you come with your family?
How many children do you have?
3. What was your perception of the United States before you arrived in this country? Do
still have the same perception? If no, why not?
4. What type of education did you receive in your country of origin? What was your
profession? Was it easy to get a job in your country of origin? Would you mind sharing
your income when you were working in your country of origin?
5. How did you picture your professional career in the US with the type of education that
you received in your country of origin?
6. Do you currently have a job? What is your occupation? Would you be comfortable
sharing your salary? Are you satisfied with what you are making?
7. Could you please describe your experience looking for a job in the United States? Have
you had challenges? If so, why? What do you think about the US Job market now?
8. What kind of support have you received in your journey in the US? What do you think
about the support that you received?
9. Do you know immigrants from other countries that are in the same situation than your?
10. Would you recommend the United States to a friend or relative who is looking to
immigrate in another country? Why/Why not?

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11. What Career plans do you have for the future?
Conclusion:
That was the last question. Is there anything you would like to add?
Your input has been very helpful for our study. Your responses will be included in my research
report that will be shared with officials of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs of the
University of Minnesota. Thank you for your time and for the information you shared with me.
Should you have any question or additional information you would like to share, please feel free
to contact me.