Computerworld –
WASHINGTON – A key House committee this week approved a
Republican-sponsored high-skill immigration bill intended to help
advanced degree holders in India and China get green cards to work in
the U.S.

The bill, advanced by the House Judiciary Committee, eliminates per-country limits
without changing the overall cap. The limits have created long wait
times for applicants in countries where the demand for green cards is
high. The bill needs action by the full House and Senate before it can
reach President Obama’s desk.

The federal government sets a cap of 140,000 employment-based green
cards a year, with no more than 7% from any single country. Because
demand is highest for advanced degree holders from India and China, the
per-country cap has meant delays for residents of those two nations of
at least four years for a green card. By contrast, people from most
other countries with advanced degrees have little wait.

The per-country caps will be eliminated if the bill, the “Fairness
for High-Skilled Immigrants Act” (H.R. 3012), becomes law. But what may
be called fair by some, isn’t seen as such by others.

In a letter for committee leaders, the Korean-American Scientists and
Engineers Association said the law would create a two-year wait for
Koreans who get science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) degrees
from universities in the U.S. It urged the committee “not to force
engineers from Korea to wait [an] additional two years in their
immigration process to get green cards.”

The legislation was introduced by U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah),
and was backed by the committee chair, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas).

“This legislation makes sense,” Smith said in a statement Thursday.
“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?”

Ron Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of
Technology in New York, said that by relaxing the per-country limits,
Congress is placing a priority on EB-2, or advanced degree-holder,
green card applicants. “This especially helps those workers from India
and China waiting in line,” he said.

“This tilts the employment-based green card preferences towards
higher-skilled workers, which is a good thing,” said Hira of H.R. 3012.
“There is of course, much more work that needs to be done. Hopefully,
Congress will next turn to helping American high-tech workers by closing
the obvious and enormous loopholes in the H-1B, L-1, B-1, and J-1 guest
worker programs.”

The IEEE-USA supports lifting per-country caps, but wants lawmakers
to take a broader approach by giving green cards to students who
graduate from U.S. universities with so-called STEM degrees.

“The country-cap only approach will have no net impact on the
American economy at all,” said the IEEE-USA, in a letter from its
president, Ronald Jensen. “No American jobs or companies will be
created. And the enormous economic potential found in a well-crafted
reform bill will have been squandered.”

There are two bills,
one from U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and another, narrower, but
similar bill from U.S. Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), that would grant
green cards to U.S. STEM grads with job offers.

Proponents of that approach characterize it as a job-creation
strategy, because it helps retains U.S.-trained foreign workers.
Opponents warn that green cards in exchange for jobs could have
unintended consequences and lead to diploma mills.

Backers estimate that green cards for STEM grads will lead to about
50,000 new green cards a year, about half for the STEM graduate and the
remainder for family members. Opponents say that estimate may under
count the actual impact.

On the elimination of the per-country cap, John Miano, the founder of
the Programmers Guild, said the cap, established in 1965, set up a
diversity system “to make immigration look like the world.” By
eliminating the cap, “we have an act that sets up a system to make
immigration look like India and China.”

Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise
applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT
workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick’s RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

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