Skilled Immigrants to the United States under the Great Recession

Lingxin Hao, Johns Hopkins University
Siri Warkentien, Johns Hopkins University

Skilled immigration to the United States has been multi-channeled via legislation on permanent and temporary programs. This paper argues that skilled immigrants in the stock were not disadvantaged during the Great Recession because of a unique mechanism, which starts with the federal legislation that admits skilled nonimmigrants, proceeds to vest authority in employers, who perform rigorous screening and selection of temporary workers for future permanency, and ends with greater protection of those selected. To test this mechanism, the paper examines skilled immigrants’ spatial mobility out of the country and their domestic labor market outcomes. The paper presents evidence from repeated, nationally representative survey data of college graduates in the US using intra-cohort and inter-cohort analysis. The major findings about the substantial cross-border mobility and high levels of labor force participation among at-entry temporary visa holders who later gained permanent residency provide strong evidence to support our proposed new hedging mechanism.