Wadhwa, Arora, Bachus voice support for measures at House hearing.
Bureau Report
WASHINGTON, DC: The first hearing by the House Judiciary Committee on immigration on Capitol Hill, since the 2012 elections, made one thing amply clear: there is bipartisan agreement on immigration reforms for skilled workers, and tougher border patrol and enforcement, but the Republicans may think hard and twice when it comes to legalization of the more than 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.
Top experts who spoke at the Committee hearing included long-time advocates of increasing visas and permanent residency for skilled workers, like Vivek Wadhwa, Director of Research, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University , and Dr. Puneet Arora, vice president, Immigration Voice.
They called for hike in the number of H-1B visas issued every year, removing country specific caps for legal permanent residency, automatic green card to those earning masters and doctorate in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and to allow spouses of legal workers to work, for H4 visa holders to get work permits.
“If you look at all the data, every single study that’s been done, it shows that when you bring skilled immigrants in they create jobs. Right now, we’re in an innovation economy. Skilled immigrants are more important than ever, not only to create jobs, but to make us innovative and help us solve major problems,” said Wadhwa.
“So bring the right people in and you will make the pie bigger for everyone, and we can bring in more unskilled as well because we will have a bigger economy. We need them. The population of America will decline unless we, you know, keep immigration going, at least at the pace that it is,” Wadhwa said.
Wadhwa said that there was need for immigration reform especially since the US’ economy is in a slump.
“We’re in the middle of a major reinvention. Our competitors are rising. Immigrants are fleeing. We have to fix the immediate problem of skilled immigrants, the million skilled immigrants legally here waiting for green cards. We don’t talk about them. We need to fix that ASAP, and we need to do the other things you’re talking about, without doubt. But we can’t wait on the million, because they’re leaving. And America is bleeding talent right now,” he said.
In his statements, Arora too advocated granting more Green Cards and visas to skilled workers, as it will boost the US economically.
“One of the problems that we have today is that we’ve restricted the mobility of the skilled workers that come into the country. They are trapped in jobs for long periods where promotions can be denied, where they have no way of going to another employer that’s willing to offer a market wage or advancement based on the experience that they’ve gained over a period of time and towards the skills that are really required where the demand for jobs is,” Arora said.
“Ultimately, we do not care how you fix the system. We just want it fixed. Not in five years, not in ten years. Now, this year,” he said.
“We’re extremely encouraged by the introduction of the Immigration Innovation Act of 2013 in the Senate and we really hope that a similar bipartisan bill will be introduced in the House. This innovation economy is global and the ripe export markets and the foreign professionals in America creating products for these markets will not wait forever,” Arora said.
At the House hearing, Alabama Republican Rep. Spencer Bachus suggested passing separate legislation, instead of one comprehensive bill, that would first deal with getting high-skilled people working legally in this country, reported Fox News.
“It’s going to be a much easier lift to solve the problem of high-skilled workers,” said Bachus, a subcommittee chairman. “We could pass a bill that would take that off the table. When you take compressive, full citizenship, that’s a more toxic contentious issue. … Let’s not let the more contentious issue prevent us from this year, this month, passing something to address what is a horrible situation — training people to go back to their countries and compete against us.”
On Capitol Hill, Republicans are already grappling with some of the thorniest issues of legalization, including how to try to head off another flood of illegal immigrants that could result from legalizing the current estimated 11 million now already here, reported The Washington Times.
“Are we serious about making this the last, last time we have this conversation, or are we simply playing political games with people’s lives and undercutting the respect for the rule of law, which ironically is the very reason they seek to come to this country in the first place?” said Rep. Trey Gowdy, chairman of the immigration subcommittee. “We shall see,” said the South Carolina Republican.
The Senate, controlled by Democrats, will hold its first hearing next week, and has invited Homeland Security Secretary Janet A. Napolitano to testify.
Her visit comes as U.S. Customs and Border Protection released the latest arrest numbers from the Southwest border, which showed a 9 percent increase in fiscal year 2012. Arrests are usually thought to be an indicator of crossings, so a rise in arrests suggests that illegal immigration is picking up after years of decline, said the Times.
CBP said it made 356,873 arrests in 2012, which is up from 327,577 in 2011 — though both are still way down from 2006 when nearly 1.2 million arrests were made.
The House hearing focused on some areas where there might be agreement.
The first panel of four witnesses, including Wadhwa and Arora, highlighted the technology sector, where both Democrats and Republicans say the legal immigration system is too burdensome and is chasing potential job-creators away.
But Michael Teitelbaum, who was part of an immigration reform commission in the 1990s, said not all U.S. high-tech sectors have job shortages, and he said the country should construct a system that responds to shortages based on U.S. needs.
He said the earlier commission also recommended streamlining family-based immigration so that siblings and adult children are not considered priorities for legal immigration.
The committee also heard from enforcement experts who said the government needs to show more dedication to enforcing the laws in the future — whether or not it enacts a legalization program, said the Times.
That, though, will take even more resources, said Julie Myers Wood, who was director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the end of the Bush administration. She said that will be particularly important because there would likely be a rush of people trying to get into the country to take advantage of any new legalization program.
“I think that ICE and the Border Patrol are underequipped and that we need to kind of look at resources. They may be more temporary resources because you know there’s going to be a large migration of people coming in illegally trying to get kind of, you know, right under the radar so they can adjust,” she said.
House Republican Leader Eric Cantor, during a policy speech yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute, called for helping the youngest illegal immigrants while saying the debate must balance “respect for the rule of law and respect for those waiting to enter this country legally,” reported Fox News.
“A good place to start is with the kids,” the Virginia congressman said. “One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents.”
Cantor also said he supports the Senate plan to make border security, employment verification and a workable guest-worker program part of the reform legislation.