Skilled immigrantsSenate stalls on easing visa restrictions for highly skilled immigrants

Published 8 December 2011

A bill meant to allow more high-skill immigrants from India and China to obtain green cards has been placed on hold by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) over concerns that it should do more to “protect Americans at home”

 

A bill meant to allow more high-skill immigrants from India and China to obtain green cards has been placed on hold by Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) over concerns that it should do more to “protect Americans at home.”

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, H.R. 3012was introduced earlier this year by Representative Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and passed through the House with broad bipartisan support on 29 November.

In a show of bipartisanship, the bill received sponsorships from noted immigration liberals Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Illinois) and Zoe Lofgren (D-California).

Under H.R. 3012 the country limit for employment-based green cards, which currently stands at seven percent, will be eliminated. After a three year transition period, the 140,000 available green cards will be offered on a first-come-first serve basis.

The move is expected to chiefly benefit highly skilled workers from India and China, the two countries that submit the vast majority the U.S. visa applications. Under the previous system, applicants from those countries could face waits as long as seventy years according to the New York Times.

“This legislation makes sense,” explained Smith before the vote. “Why should American employers who seek green cards for skilled foreign workers have to wait longer just because the workers are from India or China?”

The bill will also increase the number of green cards available to Mexicans and Filipinos with family members who are citizens or permanent residents. Members of these two groups currently face the longest wait times and the legislation aims to ease the backlog by raising the country limit for the 226,000 family-based visas from seven percent to fifteen percent. 

Criticism of the bill has focused mostly on what it does not do, which is raise the total number of employment-based visas available.

The Bloomberg editorial board wrotethat while the bill represents a positive step and should be quickly signed into law, it is a “shame” that more highly skilled immigrants are not given green cards. It noted that two-thirds of the engineering and computer science doctorates awarded in the United States in 2006 went to foreign students, while a 2007 Duke University study found that one quarter of the technology and engineering companies established in the United States between 1995 and 2005 were founded by immigrants.

The bill was expected to pass through the Senate easily until Grassley’s hold. By using a senatorial hold, the bill is prevented from reaching a vote on the Senate floor unless the hold is overturned by a three fifths majority.

I have concerns about the impact of this bill on future immigration flows, and am concerned that it does nothing to better protect Americans at home who seek high-skilled jobs during this time of record high unemployment,” saidGrassley.

Chaffetz and the bill’s Senate sponsor, Mike Lee (R-Utah), believe they can win Grassley over and plan to meet with him along with Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida).

I simply think it is a matter of education and communicating with him,” Chaffetzsaid. “The only way to even get one of these visas is you have to demonstrate that there is no American who has applied to fill that job.”

It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to have these antiquated quotas in place and a country-by-country basis,” added Lee. “Tell me how that does anything to help the American worker? I don’t know that it does.”