Lobbyists for the technology industry say they get a sympathetic hearing on Capitol Hill with that argument. The immigration bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week increases the number of green cards to 290,000 and the number of temporary visas to 115,000.
It also exempts U.S.-educated advanced-degree holders in science, technology, engineering and math from both of those caps, and puts them on an immediate path to citizenship, if they choose to stay in the U.S. after finishing their degrees.
This fragment were exacted from original article below.
Businesses trying to keep educated immigrants
By June Kronholz
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Last year, Stanford University awarded 88 Ph.D.s in electrical engineering, 49 of which went to foreign-born students. U.S. business would like to hang on to these kinds of prized graduates and not lose them to the world—which is one reason why it has a big stake in the immigration bill that is consuming the Senate.
The fate of millions of illegal immigrants, most of them low-skilled workers, dominates that debate. But the future of thousands of high-skilled foreign workers seeking admission to the country—scientists, mathematicians, health-care workers—may be equally important to the U.S. economy. Because of the key role many of those workers play in cutting-edge businesses, industry lobbyists are pushing measures that would more than double the number of visas available to skilled workers.
But if the years-long effort to overhaul the U.S. immigration system collapses, the issue of those visas could be buried in the rubble. "Our biggest fear is that the other issue—the undocumented workers—bogs down and threatens the entire bill," says Ralph Hellman of the Information Technology Industry Council, a Washington-based trade group.
Trying to break the Senate impasse, President Bush weighed into the fray yesterday, calling for a guest-worker plan that "provides for automatic citizenship" and urging senators to "come to a conclusion as quickly as possible" so talks can begin with the House.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, invited Democrats for the first time into what had been Republican-only meetings to find some compromise that can command the 60 votes needed to close down debate.
A first attempt to invoke cloture, filed by Democrats, will likely fail today given the continued partisan tensions over the bill. But Mr. Frist appears more willing to break with the most conservative critics of the immigration bill in his party if a new middle ground can be defined.
Increasing visa limits for workers at all skill levels is certain to be part of that compromise. While business is eager for more low-skilled immigration to keep the service and construction industries humming, it's also lobbying hard for workers for cutting-edge high-tech and science-based industries.
Currently, only 65,000 three-year visas are available to skilled workers each year, and demand for those slots was so strong in the fiscal year that started in October 2005 that employers, who must sponsor those workers, snapped up all of them by last August.
The government also gives out 140,000 employment-based visas yearly—so-called green cards that put immigrants on the track to citizenship. But those visas are shared equally among all sending countries. That means that an employer hoping to hire a Chinese- or Indian-born worker now has at least a five-year wait before the immigration service even reads the application.
Employers from hospitals to high schools increasingly are reliant on foreign workers who enter the U.S. through the employment-visa line. But high-tech employers are particularly dependent, and they say that the paucity of visas threatens their competitiveness.
Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. says about 500 of its 19,000 domestic employees are waiting for U.S. green cards, and that most of them are electrical engineers. Those workers are in the U.S. on temporary work permits, but while their green-card applications are pending, they can't change work assignments or cities to meet their companies' needs.
Employers are particularly irked by the visa system's treatment of foreign-born scientists who must leave the country after finishing their studies if a U.S. company can't secure a visa to hire them. As it is, U.S.-born students account for only about half the science, math, technology and engineering advanced-degree holders turned out by American universities yearly.
When companies run out of U.S.-born workers, and then can't hire immigrants, "projects get dropped or delayed, so development is slowed down," says Patrick Duffy, a human-resources lawyer for Intel Corp.
"It's not as if the work won't get done, it's where will the work get done," adds Sandra Boyd, who heads a National Association of Manufacturers competitiveness initiative.
In 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, high-tech industries convinced Congress to triple the number of temporary visas available every year. That largely met the economy's needs, says the Information Technology council. But the measure expired in 2003, and with the high-tech industry then ailing, employers didn't push for an extension.
Two years ago, under renewed pressure from employers, Congress made a modest adjustment. It exempted 20,000 advanced-degree holders who already were studying at U.S. universities from the cap on temporary visas, allowing them to take jobs with U.S. employers. But again, demand was so strong that those slots were filled on Jan. 9 for the fiscal year beginning in October.
"It doesn't make sense to educate this talent and then send them to our global competition to compete against us," says Intel's Mr. Duffy.
Lobbyists for the technology industry say they get a sympathetic hearing on Capitol Hill with that argument. The immigration bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week increases the number of green cards to 290,000 and the number of temporary visas to 115,000.
It also exempts U.S.-educated advanced-degree holders in science, technology, engineering and math from both of those caps, and puts them on an immediate path to citizenship, if they choose to stay in the U.S. after finishing their degrees.
An immigration bill passed by the House in December focuses on enforcing immigration laws on the border and in workplaces.
But the Information Technology council's Mr. Hellman says he expects that House members who are appointed to the conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate versions of any immigration bills will support measures aimed at high-skilled workers.
If that compromise bill does more than just enhance enforcement, he says, "our \[issue\] is first in line in terms of support."
But Congress might not get that far. Republicans remain split over how many of the current 11 million illegal immigrants should be granted permanent residency. Moreover, the Senate is scheduled to start a two-week recess tomorrow, which means that immigration overhaul could die for lack of action.
If that happens, industry lobbyists say they would try to attach their visa measures to a spending bill later in the year. That risks further delay and uncertainty, though, even while competitors, including Britain, are streamlining their immigration systems to attract high-skilled workers. "We'll find ourselves playing catch-up," warns the National Association of Manufacturers' Ms. Boyd.
David Rogers contributed to this article.
Date of Publication: April 06, 2006 on Page