At a time when US productivity growth and new business formation are low, admitting more H-1B workers seems like an obvious move.

In the tempestuous debates about immigration policy, the humble H-1B temporary visa tends to be overlooked. Streams of desperate Central Americans marching toward the border tend to evoke strong emotions on all sides, while tech professionals from India working in Silicon Valley elicit fewer objections. But H-1B workers are important to national prosperity, and the program is under threat from the Donald Trump administration.

Though these visas normally expire after six years, the H-1B effectively functions as a trial period for high-skilled immigrants. Often, it gives a worker a chance to become established and apply for permanent residence, while it gives their employer the ability to try them out. Without it, fewer skilled immigrants would be able to work in the US.

H-1B workers contribute a lot to innovation and economic dynamism. A 2010 study by economists William Kerr and William Lincoln, for example, found that when H-1B admissions were increased in the 1990s, patents attributable to people with Chinese and Indian surnames increased, while patents by people with Anglo-Saxon names didn’t fall.

And a recent paper by economists Stephen Dimmock, Jiekun Huang and Scott Weisbenner found that companies that win the H-1B visa lottery—which is held in years when applications exceed the number of visas—tend to receive more venture-capital funding, tend to be more successful and produce more patents.

Though these visas normally expire after six years, the H-1B effectively functions as a trial period for high-skilled immigrants. Often, it gives a worker a chance to become established and apply for permanent residence, while it gives their employer the ability to try them out. Without it, fewer skilled immigrants would be able to work in the US.

H-1B workers contribute a lot to innovation and economic dynamism. A 2010 study by economists William Kerr and William Lincoln, for example, found that when H-1B admissions were increased in the 1990s, patents attributable to people with Chinese and Indian surnames increased, while patents by people with Anglo-Saxon names didn’t fall.

Recently  economists Stephen Dimmock, Jiekun Huang and Scott Weisbenner found that companies that win the H-1B visa lottery—which is held in years when applications exceed the number of visas—tend to receive more venture-capital funding, tend to be more successful and produce more patents.

 Recently  economists Stephen Dimmock, Jiekun Huang and Scott Weisbenner found that companies that win the H-1B visa lottery—which is held in years when applications exceed the number of visas—tend to receive more venture-capital funding, tend to be more successful and produce more patents.