Drawing parallels between the 19th century transcontinental railroad and today’s advanced manufacturing landscape, Sarah Bileti emphasized the critical role of immigrant STEM talent in driving technological adoption, automation and innovation during her recent appearance at the Medical Design & Manufacturing Midwest Conference. The organization posted the article, “Slowing Down the Medtech Innovation Train,” to recap the event discussion.
Bileti, senior counsel and chair of the Immigration Practice Group at Warner, discussed how restrictive visa policies, such as the $100,000 annual H-1B fee, threaten access to the highly specialized workforce companies need to implement AI, robotics and validated software. “When skills are specific, access to people determines the pace of adoption,” she said.
She reviewed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which shut down Chinese immigration for more than 60 years just as Western economies were scaling. Citing recent economic research, Bileti noted that labor supply tightened, manufacturing slowed and earnings growth for U.S. workers fell — which was the very group the law claimed to protect.
“If we want faster adoption, stronger suppliers and broader prosperity, access to the people who can build and implement these systems isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the track the whole train runs on,” Bileti said. “We’re in the middle of a production shift. Digital design and verification, smart robotics, additive manufacturing, advanced materials, edge and IoT sensors and validated software — these capabilities demand cross-disciplinary teams with skills that are globally distributed.”
Bileti emphasized that today’s medical device manufacturers face similar stakes. Without access to global talent, the industry risks delays in design transfers, slowed line commissioning and bottlenecks in quality and compliance systems.
The full article can be accessed on the Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry webpage here.
