Editorial: Our immigrants' exodus

If Raghu Ballal carries through on his plan to leave the United States, this country will have lost a valuable asset.

The Indian-born engineer is packing for England, to take advantage of that country's Highly Skilled Migrant Program. He would like to stay in the United States, but after almost a decade in this country he still has not been able to get a green card -- the key federal document that would allow him and his wife to live and work in this country permanently.

There is no reason Ballal should be denied a permit. He earned a master's degree in civil engineering from a Texas university in 1999. He has since worked as a civil engineer for an American company under the H-1B temporary visa program that allows highly skilled workers the opportunity to work in this country.

Ballal's company sponsored his application for a green card and permanent residency. But the backlog in the nation's overwhelmed immigration bureaucracy is so long, it could be years before he gets any response.

Meanwhile, under the stringent rules of the H-1B program that allows him to stay in this country now, Ballal is barred from seeking a promotion within his own company or changing jobs. He is not unlike an indentured servant.

No wonder he has decided to go to England. There, he could get permanent residence status within weeks and citizenship within two years.

Critics have raised some legitimate problems with the the H-1B program. American engineers complain that it allows U.S. firms to hire cheap foreign labor and keep wages low. There is some evidence to support that criticism, and those issues need to be addressed.

But while those concerns are being addressed, the country cannot afford to allow bureaucratic inertia to deprive us of the talents of people like Raghu Ballal.

Immigrants are America's wealth. They have revitalized entire cities in this nation. They bring skills, a strong work ethic and family values that this country needs. That is what we lose when Raghu Ballal and others like him find it easier to leave America than stay.