Visa Barriers Are Undermining US Industrial Competitiveness

For years now, America’s manufacturing base has eroded while competition with foreign rivals, particularly China, in advanced industries has grown. In response, the United States has implemented major initiatives aimed at reviving domestic manufacturing and increasing U.S. competitiveness. For instance, in 2022, Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act to help bring semiconductor supply chains back to the United States, create jobs, and support American innovation, policies intended not only to strengthen manufacturing capacity but also to strengthen the nation’s long-term technological leadership. Similarly, the Obama administration established the Manufacturing USA initiative to promote manufacturing innovation and strengthen the country’s industrial base through public-private collaboration.

Yet despite these efforts, the United States continues to maintain policies that undermine its own manufacturing base and weaken its competitiveness. Among the most glaring are immigration and visa policies that increase the difficulty for foreigners seeking to enter the United States to transfer their knowledge and expertise to Americans. Two important examples are foreign technical experts coming to the United States to help establish and train American workers at new manufacturing facilities and foreign researchers seeking to attend scientific conferences in the United States. In both cases, the inability of these individuals to efficiently enter the country reduces knowledge spillovers that are critical to innovation, manufacturing productivity, and long-term economic competitiveness. Congress should create a dedicated visa category specifically designed for foreign individuals entering the United States to provide industrial and scientific knowledge that advances U.S. competitiveness.

First, foreign technical experts who are seeking to enter the United States to transfer manufacturing knowledge face major obstacles when it comes to obtaining a visa. This is because many must rely on the B-1 Business Visitor Visa or L-1B Intracompany Transferee Specialized Knowledge Visa, two visa categories that were not designed with modern advanced manufacturing collaboration in mind. These two visa categories often face delays in visa processing, inconsistent adjudication standards, and burdensome administrative procedures that can slow project timelines and delay factory ramp-ups. Indeed, according to the U.S. Department of State’s global visa wait time data, interview wait times for B-1 visas in some locations can stretch as long as 15 months, while the wait times for L-1B visas could stretch as long as 14.5 months for some nations. And this is just for an interview, which could result in denial.

This is problematic because advanced manufacturing leadership depends heavily on the movement of knowledge across borders. Indeed, a National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) article measures these knowledge transfers by examining whether U.S.-owned firms become more productive in industries with a stronger presence of foreign-owned firms. Using a sample of about 1,300 U.S. manufacturing firms, the paper finds that foreign direct investment spillovers accounted for roughly 14 percent of U.S. manufacturing productivity growth between 1987 and 1996. Moreover, the problem is especially concerning in advanced manufacturing industries such as semiconductors, batteries, and precision machinery. Much of the expertise required to operate cutting-edge facilities involves tacit knowledge, skills learned through direct experience that cannot simply be transferred through manuals or remote instruction. As a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report concluded, tacit knowledge has been central to the success of Taiwan’s and South Korea’s semiconductor industry.

Accordingly, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which produces a large share of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, has relied on experienced Taiwanese engineers and technicians as it expands manufacturing operations in Arizona. Likewise, South Korean firms such as Hyundai Motor Company are investing billions into U.S. facilities and often require experienced personnel from overseas plants to assist with equipment installation and other processes, including workforce training. In sum, these technical workers are key to U.S. manufacturing leadership and competitiveness and thus need a process to enter the United States more easily.

Second, foreign researchers entering the United States to transfer research knowledge at conferences also face major difficulties in obtaining visas. Indeed, foreign researchers attending conferences frequently also rely on the B-1 Business Visitor Visa, meaning they are subject to the same delays and administrative uncertainty. Moreover, even after obtaining visas, some researchers have opted not to travel to the United States for conferences due to concerns about ICE detention and intensified border screening. As a Science article notes, researchers are “reassessing their travel plans because of objections to U.S. policy and fears of being interrogated or detained by customs officials.”

This is concerning because scientific leadership and breakthrough discoveries depend heavily on international collaboration and the exchange of ideas, with conferences serving as critical venues for networking, knowledge sharing, and the formation of research partnerships. For example, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, one of the first available COVID-19 vaccines globally, was developed through a collaboration between the U.S. pharmaceutical company Pfizer and the German biotechnology firm BioNTech. Likewise, the discovery of the Higgs boson was the culmination of decades of collaboration among thousands of physicists and engineers conducting research at facilities including Europe’s CERN Large Hadron Collider and Large Electron-Positron Collider and the United States’ Fermilab Tevatron accelerator. As such, barriers that prevent or disincentivize foreign researchers from entering the United States to attend conferences and exchange ideas risk undermining U.S. scientific leadership, innovation capacity, and long-term competitiveness.

In sum, foreign engineers training American workers and foreign researchers attending U.S. conferences generate knowledge spillovers that strengthen U.S. industrial and technological capabilities. When these experts cannot enter the country, the United States loses access to expertise, collaboration, and tacit knowledge that could help bolster competitiveness.

To address this problem, Congress should create a dedicated visa category specifically designed for foreign individuals entering the United States to provide industrial and scientific knowledge that advances U.S. competitiveness. Such a visa should provide expedited processing and streamlined requirements for technical experts assisting with factory establishment and workforce training, as well as researchers attending scientific and technical conferences with rigorous peer-review standards. Rather than forcing these individuals into visa categories poorly designed for today’s innovation economy, policymakers should recognize knowledge transfer itself as a strategic national asset.

If the United States is serious about rebuilding its manufacturing base and maintaining leadership in advanced industries, it cannot afford policies that unnecessarily obstruct the flow of expertise and scientific collaboration into the country. In a global economy increasingly defined by technological competition, facilitating the movement of knowledge is not separate from industrial policy. It is industrial policy.