New South Bend program to subsidize firms seeking high-skilled international workers
SOUTH BEND — Through a new program, the city will grant money to area businesses that sponsor visas for high-skilled international employees, a process made costly and tedious by U.S. immigration laws.
Money from the city’s “High Skill Immigration Fund” will match costs incurred by employers that sponsor H-1B visas, which apply to workers in professional and specialty occupations. City leaders say the program is designed to spur growth in local industries whose expansion could be limited by a lack of high-skilled candidates.
The South Bend Redevelopment Commission allotted $300,000 to the fund earlier this month. Any business with a South Bend office that participates in the visa lottery can apply for money starting March 20, after the deadline to file visa petitions.
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South Bend Mayor James Mueller said Monday the fund will ease the risk employers face when they seek to hire talent from abroad.
The federal government caps work-sponsored H1-B visas at 85,000 annually, with 20,000 devoted to foreign-born students who graduated from U.S. master’s programs. The lottery system means companies risk spending the time and money to sponsor visas that may not be granted.
“You can have a great employee, and you can have the money and ability to sponsor their application, but you’re not guaranteed, in our immigration system, that they’re going to get it,” Mueller said. “For some employers, that’s easy to handle that risk. But for smaller employers and those who aren’t as experienced in the H1-B visa process, that risk can deter them from seeking and sponsoring those employees.”
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Mueller said the fund isn’t designed to pit international and domestic candidates against each other. It’s meant to attract more people to South Bend to combat labor shortages that would prevent growth over the next decade.
The region has “hundreds of unfilled positions'' in sectors like education, health care, information technology and manufacturing, according to a document creating the fund. Mueller said growth in these industries could begin to reverse the history of population loss that led to disinvestment in South Bend and other Rust Belt cities.
“Our businesses are ready to grow,” Mueller said, “if we can just find more people.”
A report shared by the city showed that, between 2011 and 2016, Michiana's immigrant population increased by 8.1%, while the overall population grew by only 0.8%. Foreign-born workers helped to create or preserve more than 2,000 local manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere, researchers estimate.
The city highlighted EnFocus, a consulting firm that works to find business solutions for area companies, as a model for attracting and retaining foreign-born college graduates. Executive Director Andrew Wiand said EnFocus helped the city design the immigration fund and related educational programs by meeting with representatives from 25 local employers and six regional universities.
In the coming weeks, EnFocus and the city will host events to inform international students and area businesses about H1-B visas. An initial event will be hosted online Thursday at noon, with featured speaker Michael Durham, an immigration attorney at Barnes & Thornburg. Those interested can sign up to watch at southbendin.gov/hsif.
Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend supports firms that sponsor H1-B visas for foreign workers
