Johnson said other countries such as New Zealand and Finland have also started actively recruiting talent, and streamlining their immigration processes.

"We are in a global battle," he said. "We're no longer the only game in town."

However, Alex Segura of the Utah Minuteman Project said instead of concentrating on global recruitment and watering down wages, the focus should be on recruiting American workers.

Segura acknowledged there are some fields in which very few people are experienced, but he said, "with the right training, if we push people in school with incentives to move into those fields . . . we could still tap into the American workforce."

Johnson agreed the United States needs to do a better job in finding "homegrown talent" through K-12 education, and in encouraging U.S.-born students to pursue science and technology degrees, but he said immigration is also an important factor.

Johnson said it might be better to stop thinking about immigration in terms of who we want to keep out, and start thinking in terms of who we want and need.

He suggests eliminating the quotas, and instead ensuring that immigrants be paid the prevailing wage (already required under H1B) and meet the skill sets needed in the U.S.

"We don't want cheap labor," he said. "We want as many new thinkers as we can possibly get."

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com