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Pfisthebestdebate

Resolved: The United States federal government should increase its quotas of H-1B Visas.

Hello fellow PF'ers, I am currently working on a case arguing neg on this resolution. If anyone has any good cards or information regarding the resolution please feel free to dump it all here and if anyone has gotten an outline or a draft of a case, if you don't mind helping a fellow debater out and spilling it out here!

agsr

Thanks for creating this debate.  I actually tried to debate it as part of the last DebateIsland tournament, but my opponent forfeited.  

http://dev1.debateisland.com/discussion/1779/resolved-the-united-states-federal-government-should-increase-its-quota-of-h-1b-visas

I will take affirmative side.
Resolved: The United States federal government should increase its quota of H-1B visas.

Definitions and Rules:

"Should" - decision should be based on the overall benefit to the US companies and US taxpayers.

This debate isn't about weather better controls shouldn't be placed to ensure that H-1B visas aren't abused.

H-1B program is an important source of specialized talent, especially in the IT industry. Currently, The program is most often associated with the tech industry, where H-1B workers hold about 12%–13% of jobs, according to a Goldman Sachs report. (For comparison, they hold around 0.6%–0.7% of U.S. jobs overall.) 

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/business/h-1b-visa-tech-cheers-for-foreign-workers.html

US companies compete with Global enterprises.  If US-based companies are restricted to hire global talent, but European and APAC companies can get access to most of the talent pool then it puts US companies in an unfair disadvantage. It's not about just net costs, but access to the best talent available - that is especially important in STEM - now fields like Data Science and Artificial Intelligence have significant shortage and limiting the H-1B pool will limit many business opportunities.

Source: https://www.business.com/articles/big-data-big-problem-coping-with-shortage-of-talent-in-data-analysis/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-07/just-how-shallow-is-the-artificial-intelligence-talent-pool

Seven in 10 employers said that having a global workforce was "very" or "extremely important" to their talent strategy (up from 63% last year). Some 77% cited the need to fill a skills gap for looking abroad.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/02/07/companies-say-they-want-more-h-1b-foreign-workers/#31d4dbf4df64

If US companies become less competitive then they will start losing market share and will result in less jobs for American workers and less taxes for the US government to collect.  

Also given such a shallow talent pool for specialty skills, US companies costs will be significantly higher by not hiring H1-B workers.  

In fact, Heritage Foundation calculations show that raising the cap to 195,000 visas would increase revenues by a total of nearly $69 billion over eight years. Unlike tax increases, this would be an economically beneficial source of revenue.

Source: https://www.heritage.org/immigration/report/more-h-1b-visas-more-american-jobs-better-economy

A crackdown on foreign work visas would devastate the US economy.  H1-B visas and immigrants are an important source of innovation and economic benefit we have seen in the United States.

• If the Trump administration and Congress crack down on H1-B visas, it won't just hurt immigrants, it will hurt all of us.
• Immigrants have had a profound effect on innovation in the U.S. Consider Russian-born Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google, and South African-born Elon Musk, who founded Tesla and SpaceX.
• Immigrants are twice as likely as U.S. born citizens to start a business and small business accounts for a whopping 99.7 percent of U.S. businesses.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/crackdown-on-foreign-work-visas-would-devastate-us-economy-commentary.html

Pfisthebestdebate

I would prefer to argue affirmative as I have no info on neg

bandnerd126

hey I'm currently researching the topic and here's something that i have come across for both sides. Both affirmative or negative could adopt any one of the following various potential frameworks for evaluating foreign policy.

   

National Interest: Protecting American interests, yet opting for foreign involvement if it promotes the betterment of American citizens.

Isolationism: Choosing to focus most policies internally regardless of the possible benefits (or harms) of foreign engagement.

Spheres of Influence: Choose to help our allies as a means of maintaining our general global influence.