HR 1044 Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants
Currently, the United States gives 140 thousand employment-based visas per year. However with a numerical limitation of only 7%, each country only gets about 9800 visas every year. Furthermore, individuals that are dependent of a recipient of an employment based visa are also included in this slim margin, despite the lack of any law or mandate stating that dependents are required to be counted in this employment based category. Due to this issue, many employment-based visa applicants—especially from countries such as India, China, Philippines—are waiting in decade long wait lists to obtain a green card.
These desperate applicants are left with no other option but to reside in the US with an H1-B visa until they can be promoted through the ranks of the visa ladder—a process that takes far too long due to the flawed nature of the system the United States enlists. This leads to the prevalence of H1-B visa abuse through more and more H1-B applications filed every year by corporations displacing US-citizen STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) workers. This never ending cycle of H1-B visa abuse is a preeminent infliction on the immigration system, caused solely by the broken visa-acquiring process. Yet, this does not even take into the account the children of H1-B holders in the US, who have called this country their home for almost all of their lives. These children are subjected to be deprived of hundreds of opportunities their citizen counterparts have enjoyed their whole lives—opportunities that dramatically change the prospects of their career and academic futures. Once they reach the age of 21, regardless of the contributions they have made to their American communities, they are forced to leave the only country they have ever known and part with all the opportunities that were sold to them as the promise of the “American Dream”.
However, the abolition of the per-country numerical limit would help put an end to the grievances of H1-B holders and impede abuse of the process, bringing fairness to the flawed immigration system.
There already efforts to employ this change; bill H.R.1044 in the House and bill S.386 in the Senate both advocate for this resolution and are on track to be pushed further into the approvement process. The newly proposed bill, H.R.1044, introduced by Representative Zoe Lofgren, has already accumulated 148 cosponsors (34% sponsorship) as of February 21st, 2019. Bill S.386, was simultaneously introduced by Senator Mike Lee and has 14 cosponsors (14% sponsorship). With this growing support, it is incredibly important for either bill to be pushed towards the next stage of voting as quickly as possible in order to resolve this issue in a timely and efficient manner. Both bills advocate a for increased “Fairness of Highly-Skilled Workers,” a cause not at all difficult to get behind. Moreover, these bills, as well this approach to the issue in general, is a bipartisan effort, as it plays well even for President Trump’s agenda. The passing of this motion will create a skill/merit based visa system which will increase the number of intellectual individuals coming into the US, furthering our workforce rather than pulling it down.
Thus, we strongly urge the government if the United States of America to present this issue through either of the aforementioned initiatives in order to improve the presently flawed immigration system we are subscribed to.
These desperate applicants are left with no other option but to reside in the US with an H1-B visa until they can be promoted through the ranks of the visa ladder—a process that takes far too long due to the flawed nature of the system the United States enlists. This leads to the prevalence of H1-B visa abuse through more and more H1-B applications filed every year by corporations displacing US-citizen STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) workers. This never ending cycle of H1-B visa abuse is a preeminent infliction on the immigration system, caused solely by the broken visa-acquiring process. Yet, this does not even take into the account the children of H1-B holders in the US, who have called this country their home for almost all of their lives. These children are subjected to be deprived of hundreds of opportunities their citizen counterparts have enjoyed their whole lives—opportunities that dramatically change the prospects of their career and academic futures. Once they reach the age of 21, regardless of the contributions they have made to their American communities, they are forced to leave the only country they have ever known and part with all the opportunities that were sold to them as the promise of the “American Dream”.
However, the abolition of the per-country numerical limit would help put an end to the grievances of H1-B holders and impede abuse of the process, bringing fairness to the flawed immigration system.
There already efforts to employ this change; bill H.R.1044 in the House and bill S.386 in the Senate both advocate for this resolution and are on track to be pushed further into the approvement process. The newly proposed bill, H.R.1044, introduced by Representative Zoe Lofgren, has already accumulated 148 cosponsors (34% sponsorship) as of February 21st, 2019. Bill S.386, was simultaneously introduced by Senator Mike Lee and has 14 cosponsors (14% sponsorship). With this growing support, it is incredibly important for either bill to be pushed towards the next stage of voting as quickly as possible in order to resolve this issue in a timely and efficient manner. Both bills advocate a for increased “Fairness of Highly-Skilled Workers,” a cause not at all difficult to get behind. Moreover, these bills, as well this approach to the issue in general, is a bipartisan effort, as it plays well even for President Trump’s agenda. The passing of this motion will create a skill/merit based visa system which will increase the number of intellectual individuals coming into the US, furthering our workforce rather than pulling it down.
Thus, we strongly urge the government if the United States of America to present this issue through either of the aforementioned initiatives in order to improve the presently flawed immigration system we are subscribed to.
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