Yes Corklad I agree totally
. I can't see why JARland accuse the US of protectionism:
I am Irish and came over to the US a couple of years ago, got my FAA licences, instructed here for a year where I met quite a few foreign flight instructors (mostly German, Austrian and Canadian)
who were sponsored for work visas by the flight schools.
I moved on to a Regional flying out of Newark (the one with a fleet of 274 EMB145's). I have flown with a ton of Europeans there: Spanish, Swedish, English, French, Irish; everyone loves it (no BA style forced draft or anything of the sort).
Yes, as FO the pay is not good but you can upgrade in two years and anyway the loans you have to pay off are only a fraction of what they would have been for training in Europe. At any rate you can move on to a major if you want in another year or two after that once you have a 1000 hrs turbine PIC.
The only glitch I have seen recently is that the Major that most of our pilots go to is rumoured to prefer not to hire non-US citizens because of the "TSA regs" i.e. just a whole load of hassle getting people authorized by Homeland Security - I am sure that'll change when they start trying to hire 60-70 pilots a month after the summer is over.
Anyway, by that time, after five or six years here most people will have their green card and close to getting US Citizenship, I understand that is not something as easy to do in Red tape-land.