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07.08
STEM
Immigration Bills Gathering Support in Congress
By Russ Harrison
Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.)
has introduced legislation in Congress that will
dramatically change America’s skill-based
immigration system. Her bills will make it
significantly easier for non-Americans with
advanced education and skilled to become
citizens.
Lofgren’s bills reform the
Employment-Based (or EB) visa. This is the most
common visa used by foreigners to become
Americans based on their skills, as opposed to
family connections. To qualify for an EB visa,
individuals must have a job offer in the United
States, and usually need to have at least a
Bachelors degree. People with a higher-level
degrees get preferential access to the visas. In
some cases, skills can be substituted for
education.
EB visa holders are permanent
legal residents and can, after a few years,
apply for citizenship. While using an EB visa,
they have the same legal rights as American
workers (except they can’t vote or get security
clearances). Most importantly, EB visa holders
can move across the country and across the
economy as they wish, just as an American worker
could. Currently, 140,000 EB visas are available
each year, although this count includes the
spouses and children of workers. Some 60,000
individual workers are able to use the program
each year.
Chairwoman Lofgren has
introduced three separate bills that would
expand the EB program.
H.R. 5882 would recapture EB visas
that went unused in past years, usually because
of bureaucratic delays. These visas would be
available to people who are currently waiting
for a visa.
H.R. 5921 would eliminate country caps in
the EB program. Current law limits how many
immigrants from the same country can use the
visas in a given year. Removing these limits
would allow talented people to enter the United
States regardless of where they were born.
H.R. 6039 exempts international students who
receive a masters or PhD from an American school
from the EB visa caps. This would effectively
allow anyone who receives an advanced degree in
the United States to move directly from their
student visa to a permanent green card and, in a
few years, citizenship.
All three bills have bipartisan
support in the House of Representatives. A
companion bill to H.R. 6039 has been introduced
in the Senate.
S. 3084 was sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer
(D-Calif.) and cosponsored by Sen. Gregg (R-N.H.).
A fourth bill, introduced by
Congressman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) would also
expand the EB program. Issa’s bill, H.R. 6090,
would eliminate an unrelated visa category,
adding its 55,000 visas to the EB program. These
extra EB visas would be available to STEM
graduates with advanced degrees and a job offer
in a STEM field. The affect of H.R. 6090 on STEM
students would be the same as H.R. 6039, as only
about 38,000 international students earn
advanced degrees in these fields each year. Issa
belongs to the minority party in Congress and,
as of publication, his bill has only Republican
support, making passage unlikely.
Congresswoman Lofgren is Chair
of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee
on Immigration, which gives her considerable
influence over all immigration legislation.
Lofgren is an immigration attorney by profession
and represents part of Silicon Valley, which
makes her a recognized expert on high-skill
immigration policy.
Her sponsorship of these bills
ensures that they will be at the center of any
debate over high-skilled immigration. But it
doesn’t mean the bills will pass. While few
legislators object to these bills in principle,
opposition from legislators who do not want to
increase the number of visas available to
anyone, and legislators who only want
comprehensive immigration reform, may block the
bills in 2008. If they do, Lofgren will likely
reintroduce the bills next year where the
political climate will be more favorable.
IEEE-USA has publicly endorsed
all three Lofgren bills and is working hard to
win passage of them this year. IEEE members who
wish to express their opinions on these bills
are encouraged to visit the IEEE-USA Legislative
Action Center at
www.ieeeusa.org/policy/lac to
send your legislators e-mail expressing your
opinions.
If you have questions about
these bills or IEEE-USA’s position on them,
please contact IEEE-USA staffer Vin O’Neill at
v.oneill@ieee.org.
Why is the EB Visa Preferable
to the H-1B Program?
For nearly a decade, IEEE-USA
has loudly and publicly opposed the H-1B visa
program. Now IEEE-USA is supporting an expansion
of the EB program. Have we changed our minds?
Not at all. IEEE-USA continues
to oppose expanding the H-1B program, unless it
undergoes significant reform. And we have always
supported an expansion of the EB visa program.
While the two programs are similar, they have
several crucial differences.
The most important of these
differences is that the H-1B visa is a temporary
work permit. It lets people work in the United
States for six years, but does not give them any
residency rights or access to citizenship.
Workers using an H-1B have difficulty changing
jobs, and cannot switch jobs if they want to
transition to a permanent immigration visa. They
are also prohibited from starting their own
companies.
In contrast, the EB is an
immigration visa. Holders of the EB are
permanent legal residents who, if they wish, can
become citizens. The EB lets immigrants switch
jobs, move and start companies like any
American.
The advantage of this difference
is that EB workers are fully vested in America.
They can move, change jobs or even careers. H-1B
workers need their employer’s sponsorship to
remain in the country, and as a result, they can
be easily exploited by unscrupulous employers.
For example, if an EB visa
holder learns that his employer is paying him
less than American citizens for the same job, he
can simply quit. An H-1B worker in the same
situation generally cannot. Companies that
sponsor H-1B workers know that they have the
visa holders at a disadvantage because they
would need their employer to sign off on any
changes to their visa.
IEEE-USA believes that the
United States should welcome skilled foreigners
into our economy as citizens, not just temporary
help. The EB Visa allows the United States to
welcome the world’s most talented people as
permanent citizens.
Therefore, IEEE-USA opposes
expanding the H-1B program (in its current
form), but fully supports expanding the EB visa
program.
Russell T. Harrison is IEEE-USA's Legislative
Representative for Grassroots Activities.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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