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House Committee to Vote on Employment-Based Immigration Reform
October 14, 2011 - by Donny Shaw
Under current law, no country can receive more than 7% of the total employment-based immigration visas made available worldwide. The cap ensures diversity in the employment-based immigration community, but it also means that workers in big countries, like India and China, who American tech firms might want to hire, have very little chance of actually securing a visa.
The House Judiciary Committee this afternoon is holding a mark-up of the first major immigration reform bill of this session, and it’s designed to address this issue. The “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act,” introduced recently by Rep. Jason Chaffetz [R, UT-3], would remove the per-country immigration caps to make it easier for U.S. companies to hire foreign workers.
This article from the Duanne Morris law firm, which I found through the aggregated news/blog coverage on the OC bill page, has a good summary:
As of right now, the Immigration and Nationality Act allows for only 140,000 employment-based visas to be allocated each year. At present, the percentage of visas that can be allocated to any one country is capped at 7% percent of all of the employment-based visas available. Underthe Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, , the per-country limit on employment-based visas would be eliminated by 2015 after a 3 year phase-in period. During the 3 year transition, the vast majority of Employment Based visas would be allocated to Indian and Chinese nationals in order to eliminate the current backlogs. In FY 2012, Indian and Chinese nationals would receive 85% of the visa allocation. In FY 2013 and FY 2014 they would receive 90% of the visa allocations.
H.R. 3012 also increases from 7% to 15% percent the total number of available visas regarding per-country restrictions for family-based immigrants. This would greatly reduce long backlogs for nationals from Mexico and the Philippines who often wait more than 10 years for a green card to become available.
The bill is co-sponsored by the Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith [R, TX-21], so it should have no problem getting through the committee today and onto the House floor. If it gets a vote in the House, it’s likely to pass. Prospects in the Senate are less certain. The Democrats, who control the Senate, still want to do comprehensive immigration reform, including a plan for addressing issues of undocumented immigration. Passing this bill separately could mean they would have less leverage with Republicans for passing a comprehensive bill down the line.
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Comments
This basically comes down to fairness. Quotas have no place in anything related to employment. There is good reason they don’t exist in the hiring policies of companies. If employers can’t base hiring decisions based on nationality, why have the rule when the same folks are applying for their Permanent Residency. Also, this bill does not increase the number of immigrants let in the country, but just makes it a first come first serve system.
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Country of origin should have no place in an employment based immigration system. It’s surprising that this discrimination has been going on for so long. Employers care about skills and merit, not where you were born. It’s about time these country limits are removed!
Yes, this is so surprising that this existed for so long. The diversity logic makes sense in family and diversity visa, but to bring that in Employment category is totally useless. There is no difference in Job duties of EB-3 India and EB-3 Canada person and they both could be employed by same employer for similar job, but EB-3 Canada would get green card earlier than EB-3 India. This treatment is unfair and we all should support this bill to bring fairness.
This is all about fairness and good for America and innovation. 12 years ago when I got here, US was the prime location for all of my graduating class intending to pursue further studies, but with this 70 year long wait to finish the dream, the best and brightest are looking for other options. I hope Congress will do the right thing.
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Thanks for the post and for increasing awareness about the details of this legislation. I’ll reprise what everyone has been saying about this all along – “this is about making high-skilled legal immigration about skills” – as simple as that. Factors, such as, diversity etc. should figure in the allocation of diversity visas, but not employment visas.
With due deference to the current laws, I think the legal immigration system is not completely fair and needs some tweaking to adjust to the current times and realities. I believe this bill does just that.
I hope this bill makes it through the entire legislative process and brings in fairness to the current legal immigration system (without adding a single extra visa than what is sanctioned by the current laws – in the employment category).
This new bill is so un-American… It basically means America is choosing India, China and on the Family Visa side you can include Phillipines and Mexico.. as its Preferred countries.
People from other countries cannot help the huge demand caused by Indians and Chinese, the burden should not be placed on us. If they want to fix the system, add more visa’s, dont take away from ME to give to countries that are so backlogged. This makes no sense, it means the USA is no longer interested in diversity, and has chosen the countries which it is allowing to come to the US and flood the polulation, while negativley impacting the rest of the words chances of immigrating to the US. Really Miserable, and a kick in the teeth for prople from the rest of the world, who are also here legally working and paying taxes. I am telling everyone I know, including mailing local news channels, using facebook etc, to spread the word to vote NO to this.
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