Foreigners not so welcome anymore

I recently blogged about how few countries' citizens can visit the US without a visa. More egregiously, US immigration officials have shown a predilection toward turning down visa applicants on a whim. And the US keeps the $100 fee even when an applicant is rejected. And then there are the horror stories.

For several years now, any number of US organizations have been choosing not to hold major meetings in the US, citing the difficulties their foreign members experience getting US visas to attend a conference. Now its impacting jobs. The NY Times reports:

Officials of large investment banks on Wall Street said the difficulty in obtaining visas for foreign workers, many of them graduates of American universities, had caused them to shift dozens of jobs to other financial capitals this year. In some cases, foreign-born professionals have grown weary of the struggle to get and renew a work visa in the United States and moved on to cities like London, where they say they feel more welcome.