Seems like an interesting idea. Why do you think it's not already being done? I haven't really explored the idea very carefully, but this would amount to giving universities the power to grant citizenship to foreigners, which seems like it has a lot of potential for abuse.
Just a note that green card holders are residents, not citizens. They don’t get to vote, they just get to pay taxes.
Still potential for abuse of course, but an important distinction.
The difference between H1B and permanent resident is massive. Residents aren't beholden on their employer to remain in the country.
While there are time and other requirements after getting lawful permanent resident status (“green card”), the main limitation on access to citizenship is getting status in an immigrant category and thereby becoming an LPR.
PhDs on the other hand, regardless of the field, you've contributed something unique to the collective knowledge of humanity. Instant green card, it's even dumber to kick them out.
Green cards, also aren't citizenship but are simply a step to getting there. There are many types of visas that let you work but have stipulations, especially around leaving the country. If there really is some kind of fear of people collecting citizenship after spending decades in the country and becoming highly educated, special visas with rules are always an option. But there should be a viable path to citizenship either way. We should not be kicking these people out.
Depends on the field. I've met PhDs that are fantastic, and I've also met PhDs whose defining contribution to human knowledge over their entire lifetime was "I made this algorithm 2.3% faster in a specific tiny edge case that no one will ever care about."
That's pretty much what most research or even startups are like. You bet that 5% will blow up, and hence you fund the other 95%.
They have to get accepted into a program and graduate and they have to have the funds to pay tuition. Then they'll work productively here and pay taxes. I can't think of any reason why this would be a bad thing except the bigoted "ugh, too many Indian people."
Absorbing educated people from other nations is an economic superpower.
More educated immigrants lead to more jobs and economic growth.
1. https://www.cato.org/blog/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-s...
2. https://www.aclu.org/other/immigrants-and-economy
3. https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/b...
4. https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-e...
5. https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/immigra...
But that said, you would make it more difficult for American citizens to attend American graduate degree programs that they subsidize with their taxes. There's a finite number of seats for students and I'm not sure if they're better filled with locals or people who want guaranteed permanent residency.
The parent poster did not say anything about stopping other avenues of immigration. Immigration is expensive. Do you think a lot of people who aren't privileged enough can easily immigrate?
As someone who has interviewed and worked with a number of international students with master's degrees, approximately 70% of them somehow manage to get a master's from a US college without actually knowing anything, so my cynical side says we definitely should not automatically add green cards to master's degrees.
The reason to give almost anyone working a tech job a green card quickly is so they don't depress the market wage by being indentured serfs.
The absolute worst thing the US could do to the Indian IT sweatshops is to give a "tech worker" a guaranteed green card in 18-24 months so that they can change employers. Those companies would quit applying for visas almost immediately.
Need a source for this. I'm sure there are a vast number of master's students who get their degree from shitty colleges to just be able to work here, but the vast majority of international co-workers I've had were amazing.
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-eligibility/gree...
It can be easily gamed and would lead to a rise in education industry specifically for this.
I think the better would be to give a green card after getting a US degree in areas that matter to the economic growth, and the students have worked here, in those industries for 5 years.
I'll never understand why we don't just staple green cards to master's degrees. It's absolutely absurd that we're choosing to kick out talented, hardworking people who are already established here, who are disproportionately young and healthy. And they're at the very beginning of their careers - they're ready to pay a lifetime of taxes. They're the absolute opposite of drains on society.