11/04/2005: Passage of S. 1932 Means a Lot to Higher Learning & Research Institutions and High Tech Industry
Report indicates that the current broken employment based immigration system, unless it is mended quickly, will create a serious irreparable damage to the future of this nation because of the failure to recruit the brightest and to retain the recruited brightest in the country. The higher learning industry, research industry, and high tech industry, have decried and deplored inaction by the country's political leaders to prevent such long-lasting irreparable damage.
The passage of S.1932 is indeed a timely action by the political leaders to mend such disastrous long-term and long-lasting irreparable damage before too late. The meaning of this bill should be looked at, among others, the following three perspectives as related to the higher learning, research industry and high tech industry:
Issue of "recruitment" of the brightest in the growing international competition: The political leaders do not have to waste their time to do research on this issue. There is an abundance of reports and stastistics that have been released by the nation's leading institutions as well as the testimonies before the subcommittees, committees of the Congress. These industries have been experiencing a serious challenge to attract more "Einsteins" and "Bernsteins," because of the broken American immigrantion system.
Issue of "retaining" the brightest foreign workers under the environment of serious international competition: This country has a pool of the brightest foreign workers who have been contributing to the nation by enriching the social, cultural, scientific, and economic foundation on which this nation stands and by keeping the competitive edge and leadership in the international competition in the global economy and world. Recent exodus of these brightest foreign workers has raised a concern not only from the perspectives of the stakeholder industries but also from the perspectives of historians. The nation's leaders can not dwell on short-sighted policies and visions in leading the strongest country in the world. In the current environment of terrorism and homeland security, the leaders can lose sight of their mission which is given by the Constitution of the nation and the rich history of this country, unless they keep looking back the implication of their actions.
Issue of "impact" of the current broken immigration system on outsourcing of American jobs: During the past one month, this web site has repeatedly brought up this issue and we do not have to reinterate the importance of mending the employment-based immigration system.
We realize that this important immigration packet is presented to the Congress as part of the Omnibus Reconciliation bill which contains numerous volitile political issues other than immigration issues. We hope that the political leaders in the House and the Senate, and for that matter, the President quickly work out concensus for other politically vulnerable issues quickly and enact this bill into a law as quickly as possible. The impact of other politically vulnerable issues was evident from the record of votes of the Senators who passed the immigration bill in the Judiciary Committee in absolute majority but who passed the entire packet of S. 1932 in the dangerously slim margin. A number of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of the immigration packet in the Judiciary Committee but voted "nays" to S.1932 which contained the immigration bill in the full Senate because of the other politically vulnerable items in the bill. We urge the Congress and the President to work out the differences without too much pains and swiftly pass this bill into law within the next two weeks.