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Workforce, Immigration, and Education
At a Glance:
BSA Position
BSA supports comprehensive immigration reform to recapture unused permanent resident visas (green cards) lost through bureaucratic delay each year and promote family unity by decreasing delays of issuing family-based green cards and support programs to promote training and education.
Background
The technology industry has been committed to comprehensive immigration reform. We understand that there are many challenges to achieving that goal. We believe there are some specific issues that can be addressed that would help the serious backlogs that impose undue burdens on hundreds of thousands of families and countless businesses, universities, hospitals, and other employers, large and small, across our country.
Currently, it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of previously authorized but unused employment-based and family-based green cards. These green cards were unused because of administrative and processing issues that occurred during the fiscal years they were made available. Under the law today, green cards that are not issued in the year they are allocated simply vanish at midnight at the fiscal year’s end. The failure to efficiently use these visas has needlessly added to the backlog delays, while adding personal and professional strain to tens of thousands of families.
For families, the delays in processing are unnecessarily helping to contribute to a seven- to 10-year wait for legal permanent residents to be reunited with their spouses and minor children. These delays not only undermine families but delay the process of integration while legal permanent residents work to support two separate households.
Legislation is needed to permit previously authorized and unused green cards to be recaptured and applied to the current family- and employment-based backlogs. It would address these backlogs without creating one new green card. This proposal would provide substantial relief for tens of thousands of families.
The competition to develop and supply the next wave of products and services requires access to individuals who have the knowledge to foster expansion into new frontiers. While many of the world’s top scientists, engineers, researchers, and educators are US citizens, others are not. It is fundamental to US economic interests to provide world-class education and job training and to have a secure and efficient immigration system that welcomes highly educated and talented professionals to our nation.
A majority of advanced degrees from US universities in areas of study such as engineering, mathematics and computer sciences are awarded to foreign nationals. According to the National Science Board, current trends suggest that the number of US citizens qualified for science and engineering jobs will remain level “at best.” For instance, the Department of Labor estimates there will be 1,524,000 total available computer specialist jobs in the US workforce by 2016, yet US universities expect their graduates to fill only 53 percent of these jobs.
At the same time, the United States may be unable to rely on foreign citizens to fill this talent gap. Current H-1B visa limits and backlogs in the employment-based green card program preclude US employers from hiring and retaining many of these graduates. The H-1B cap for fiscal year 2009 was exhausted during the filing period that began April 1, 2008. The cap has not been hit this year, with less than 50,000 applications on file with the USCIS due largely to our economic downturn. The 20,000 slot exemption for those with master’s degrees or PhDs has been filled.
Action Needed
Congress should enact high-skilled immigration reform legislation that:
United States
