Google wants the U.S. government to update its immigration policies so that overseas tech professionals with highly specialized skills, including artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, can work in the country more easily.
“There’s wide recognition that there is a global shortage of talent in AI, but the fact remains that the US is one of the harder places to bring talent from abroad, and we risk losing out on some of the most highly sought-after people in the world,” Karan Bhatia, head of government affairs and public policy at Google, recently explained to The Verge.
Currently, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) maintains a list of occupations (termed Schedule A) that are “pre-certified” due to an existing shortage. Employers can submit a labor certification for workers in those occupations directly to USCIS, sidestepping a lengthy review by the Department of Labor. In theory, this speeds up the time necessary for a worker to obtain a green card.
Although USCIS regularly updates the definitions associated with Schedule A, Google clearly wants the U.S. government to move faster. Of course, the Feds aren’t exactly known for their speed in policy revisions: for example, the Biden administration has spent years inching its way toward a sweeping H-1B modernization, with no end seemingly in sight. And when reforms are pushed through, they’re often met with legal challenges, as demonstrated by the Trump administration’s failures to end H-4 EAD and other immigration programs.
The A.I. boom has sparked massive demand for tech professionals who’ve mastered core A.I. skills, including training large language models (LLMs) and writing great generative A.I. prompts. Last month, CompTIA classified 65,241 jobs as “emerging tech,” and 19,100 of those involved artificial intelligence in some way. At A.I. companies like OpenAI, even midlevel software engineers can pull down enormous compensation, especially when you fold equity and bonuses into the mix. That demand is clearly changing how some of the most well-monetized companies in tech are searching for talent.
