Thursday's Hot Topic: Does the US Green Card system mean the US loses out on bright and educated Irish immigrants?

They arent letting all the educated young irish slip through their hands!! Lots of educated Irish still live and work in the USA and get jobs sponsored by companies who then sponsor them for green cards. I personally got my Green Card in the US GC Lottery but i know lots of companies that have sponsored friends of mine (from Ireland and the UK) for visas beyond their J1 and who have gone on and got Green cards as a result - its a matter of finding the right job, doing well in it so that the company wants to keep you (and American companies in my experience love the Irish because we aren't civil service USG minded, we arent whining and high maintenance like a lot of the "age of entitled 20 somethings around us), we are highly skilled, educated and not shy of working hard so let's be clear here, when you get a J1 visa you know what you are getting and signing up for and they know they get you for a year, there isnt some hidden agenda here! This all only ever comes to a head when the Irish economy isnt doing well, other times we hear nothing about it and the only difference this time is there arent loads of jobs around for Irish (legal or otherwise) so its not a case of them losing out, its a case of them not wanting to find jobs for lots of Irish when they arent able to keep the American citizens themselves in jobs!

It depends on the part of the country you are looking at. The southwest, especially, Texas, has great need for skilled tradespeople, IT and Biomedical professionals, engineers and math and science teachers. Don't have them and Texas while there are university graduates aren't totally in those areas. Many workers just have community college degrees and as such have little access to the jobs that are coming here and which go begging. Most major companies have to import skilled workers. Great need but the Irish like their comfort zones (NY, Boston, Chicago San Francisco).

We are not in a psition to be inviting people to come to this country for decent jobs. It is currently very difficult for people who are out of work to find jobs, and some have been unemployed a long time. It will get worse as we wind down these wars. There will be many returning service members who will be released and need jobs and an economic slowdown as we retool from a wartime to a peacetime economy.

Yes the USA is shooting itself in the foot but even more IRELAND IS SHOOTING ITSELF IN THE HEAD AND THE FOOT! Ireland needs to free up its economy and create opportunities at home. As a foreigner , and American, I went last year to buy a house and the red tape was so horrendous I just gave up. That would have moved some real money into the system, provided for repairs, construction, on going maintenance etc. I learned you can't even put an extra toilet in a house without "council approval". No wonder young kids are forced to leave their families and home country. It is outrageous.

How can we be losing out of something we don't have any room for?