You’ve heard the news already that the Bank of England is importing a high-quality central banker from Canada. This continues the tradition begun in 1688 (or was it 1066? or AD 43?) of importing the best talent rather than pushing for patriotic employment policies.
The U.S. Federal Reserve is allowed to hire foreigners, a policy I genuinely support even though it is allegedly against my own self-interest. I hope the rest of the U.S. government decides to follow suit. I’m glad to help draft the necessary constitutional amendments.
I thank John Thacker for the pointer.
READER COMMENTS
David R. Henderson
Nov 27 2012 at 2:05pm
@Garett,
It’s not just the Fed that can do that. When I was a senior economist at the Council of Economic Advisers, I was a resident alien (picture antennae sticking out of my head), not a U.S. citizen. I don’t know if it has changed.
Ken B
Nov 27 2012 at 3:05pm
@DRH:
Done. But I think favourite in your case.
Ghost of Christmas Past
Nov 27 2012 at 3:42pm
How many plausible candidates for high-level Federal Reserve jobs are likely to collect EITC once they’re here?
Even fairly strict “immigration restrictionists” are generally willing to admit foreigners of special talent (even (air-quotes) “special” talent, like William Shatner’s!). It’s the millions of undistinguished, indeed, nearly indistinguishable peasants and their statistically-predicted-to-be-negatively-distinguished offspring we most want to exclude.
Current US immigration rules don’t stand in the way of the Federal Reserve hiring a foreigner to a high-level job. The US already admits 140,000 talented permanent immigrants (plus many thousands more of their spouses and dependents) every year, chiefly in visa categories E{1,2,3} (plus merely rich people in E5). Employees of international agencies as well as physicians are given special preference.
The US also admits hundreds of thousands of workers who claim they plan to go home after a period of residence in the US.
If the Federal Reserve had some kind of anti-foreign policy of its own, that would have nothing to do with immigration law, really. Similarly, the US government civil service may favor citizens over foreigners in hiring, but that is not an immigration-law issue.
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