The Hoover Immigration Initiative, which I direct, is launching a program to investigate how the patchwork of laws and administrative rules that have shaped immigration policy over the last half century are currently serving our economy. We are beginning our work by focusing on the part of the system that facilitates most high-skill immigration: nonimmigrant visas that authorize temporary work and study in the United States.

These rules originated at different moments. The student visa dates to 1952, the Exchange Visitor Program to 1961, the H-1B and the extraordinary-ability visas to 1990. The rules that let a foreign graduate stay and work after commencement were written by regulators in 1992 and have been expanded by two administrations since then. Each program was developed to respond to the needs of its own moment; none was built with the others in mind or to anticipate and address possible future challenges. Congress has not seriously touched immigration since the early 1990s, nor has it assessed whether these rules add up to a coherent whole that serves the needs of the country today.

When signing the Immigration Act of 1990, President George H. W. Bush called immigration “a bridge to America's future.” The act created the H-1B program to bring in scientists, engineers, and educators— the skilled workers needed to fuel the dynamic economy he envisioned.

Bush was right: The economy did grow strong and created enormous wealth. In 1990, the US economy was, in real terms, roughly half its current size. There were no Google and no Amazon—and no smartphone in anyone’s pocket. About one in six American jobs was then in manufacturing; today, it’s closer to one in twelve.

The H-1B program, meant to facilitate that transition, was a bet that skilled talent admitted into an emerging knowledge and service economy would complement American workers rather than compete with them. It was also a bet that newcomers would seed firms, file patents, and widen opportunity for the native-born.

The evidence has borne out much of this hypothesis. Economists have found that high-skilled immigrants strengthen the workforce by complementing the skill sets of native workers, raising productivity, spurring innovation, and expanding the pie rather than dividing it.

America has long defined itself as a nation of immigrants. However, its openness has never held consistent. Great expansions have been followed by great restrictions that reflected American voters’ anxiety about their future. The 2024 election suggests another such turn: Economic insecurity and a sharpening social divide have fed a new wave of anti-immigration sentiment.

The economist’s instinct is to search for answers to such questions by looking to the past. This is a legitimate approach. Immigrants have built firms, filed patents, and staffed labs and hospitals; it is reasonable to postulate that further immigration will play a role in a similarly bright future for American growth and innovation. But the economy is changing, and anxiety now runs high among college graduates facing a new threat to their job security from the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence. This begs the question: Is aggregate analysis of the past still a useful guide for the future?

Our initiative takes a different approach. We aim to evaluate how current immigration policies support the economy both as it exists now and as may develop. We also ask a more focused question: Which of the rules in place are serving their intended purpose, and which are generating dysfunctions that stifle the American economy and its competitive advantage?

The initiative’s initial focus is the pipeline through which young talent reaches the United States. Our early work includes addressing the following issues:

• Which jobs the H-1B visa program actually fills and whether the country can still benefit from additional talent in those fields
•  Which employers are hiring through the program, whether the firms building new products and technologies or the intermediaries that place workers wherever labor is cheapest 
• Where the international students go and which fields of study transition into the US workforce

The Hoover Immigration Initiative addresses these questions by advancing rigorous research and informed debate on immigration’s economic effects. The answers will shape America’s competitiveness for decades to come.

The country has spent a long time arguing about whether to open the door. It has spent almost no time asking whether the door still fits the house.