Dear Editor:

Requesting H1-B visa for postdocs and highly educated workers is already an extremely competitive and burdensome process.

Professor Matloff is a well-publicized advocate of a further decrease in the number of H1-B visas awarded yearly. Dateline’s April 10 story that described Matloff as an “iconoclast” and his efforts of “informed dissent” creates an aura of martyrdom around what seems more akin to a conspiracy theory with a tinge of xenophobia. (Editor’s note: The story originally appeared in the spring 2009 issue of UC Davis Magazine.)

As a foreign national who has completed a doctorate in the U.S., has been hired as a postdoc for the same salary as any American graduate, and has found a life partner here, I find Matloff’s rhetoric frightening.

The Department of Homeland Security is already a major obstacle in creating productive international teams in academia and industry. It is an obstacle for myself and thousands other foreigners excited to establish a career in the U.S. as productive and taxpaying members of the society. It is an obstacle for my employer, who appointed me not because I am cheap labor, but because I increase his research productivity.

Matloff’s proposal is an example of a top-down control tendency and protectionism. If enacted, his view would have no other effect on the national expert job market than further stifling its evolution, preventing foreigners from joining the American workforce, and making the country less internationally competitive.

Foreign experts deprived of entry can either stay home and become competitors to U.S. academia and industry, or enter alternative domestic jobs, which would benefit no one.

Jiri Hulcr

Bohart Museum of Entomology

visiting researcher from Michigan

State University