Bill to remove green card country caps gets rid of “racist” immigration rules, says Utah Republican.
Calling S.386 or the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, seeking to remove country caps on green cards, “a good bill,” Republican Senator Mike Lee has advocated its early passage.
The Utah lawmaker spoke about the bill and the issue of green card backlog at two town halls on Wednesday at Farmington and Draper cities in his home state.
With about 300,000 Indians currently waiting for a green card, the community members were eager to hear more about the future of the bill’s passage going forward.
However, some anti-immigration groups are also resentful about the bill which they feel gives an unfair advantage to Indians and negatively impacts American diversity.
Senator Lee patiently explained why he thought S.386 was a good bill and why people should not go by misinformation and rumors surrounding it online and otherwise.
To bring home how current US immigration laws impact individuals differently based on the country of their birth, he cited an example of immigrants from Germany and India.
“Imagine that immigrant A and immigrant B have identical resumes, identical family circumstances, identical incomes, identical background checks,” Lee said.
“The only difference between immigrant A and immigrant B is that immigrant A is from a smaller less populated country let’s say Germany and immigrant B is from a large and heavily populated country let’s say India.
“Immigrant A who might have applied will get his visa within 12 months. Immigrant B will be on a waiting list for probably 20 years,” Lee said. “This is wrong.â€
Noting that the current law dates back to 1950s, Lee minced no words in calling it “racist.”
“This is the word I hesitate in using and I use it very sparingly but I am going to use it here – it is racist,” he said.
“There is no good reason for us in this day and age in 2020 to be allocating employment based visas based on country of birth,†Lee said.
“A few decades ago, we had people who were making this decision who said, look we don’t want too many people coming from one country. In my view that was probably code for we don’t want too many people who don’t look like us.”
“That’s wrong. We gave up that kind of thinking long time ago in this country,” Lee said. “That’s all this bill does. It gets rid of that.â€
On the green card backlog issue, Lee said, “Yes there is a backlog. Why? Because people from India are having to wait for 20 years compared to identically situated Swedes or Germans who get it within a year.
“So, yes there is a backlog. But this (S.386) deals with that backlog. But it does not increase the total number of immigrants and visa holders.”
“There are a lot of rumors on the internet about this bill, a lot of them online and a lot of them make utterly false accusations about this bill,” he said.
Asking people not to pay heed to internet rumors about S.386, Lee declared, “It’s a good bill and it needs to pass.â€
ALSO READ:
Indians, Chinese must press Republicans to pass Green Card backlog bill S.386 (November 7, 2019)
The newly passed H.R.1044 raises caps for family-based green cards (July 10, 2019)
How Netra Chavan channeled her own frustrations to build an H4 and H-1B visa support system (February 14, 2019)
RHC’s H-1B rally demands elimination of Green Card backlog, protection for ‘DALCA’ children (February 10, 2019)
Trump talks about changes in H-1B Visa, including a possible citizenship (January 11, 2019)
Trump’s tweet on H-1B and path to citizenship evokes lukewarm response (January 12, 2019)
Waiting for the Wait to End: The human face of Indian immigrants caught in the Green Card backlog (December 4, 2018)
H-4 and H-1: Time for Indian immigrants to speak up on immigration policy, says author Amy Bhatt (January 5, 2019)
The unstable life of Indians on H-1B visa in the US due to visa renewal policy (October 28, 2016)
High-skilled Indian workers, DALCA kids, rally on Capitol Hill to clear green card backlog (June 15, 2018)
Reverse brain drain – the experience of three couples who moved back to India from the US (January 20, 2014)
10 Comments
American should shit on mike lee face. He sold america for indian h1b scams. He will sell his wife too.
Our American Future Is Being Stolen By Cheap Foreign H1-B Visa Workers & We Will Lose Over $100 Billion Dollars In LOST Wages EVERY Year. Let His Story Be The Warning
Our American Future…IQBAL ASIF ? LOL!!!
When does America became yours. You religious haters claim America as ours.
What a retard. No one gives a shit. Kick out all these visa indian scumbags, millions of them have sneaked in after Y2K and destroyed entire neighborhoods, costing US citizens their jobs, their homes, careers and their families in many cases. DEPORT ALL OF THESE STINKING CURRY-FILLED A-HOLES ASAP.
Where did your ancestors came from? Get some education and become qualified to get and project job. If you are afraid of competition, GTFO. We study hard in top US colleges and get jobs in the best companies. We don’t steal the cheap burger flipping jobs like you do, so first get some level to talk about us. A** h**** like you are spreading wrong info over the internet and that needs to be stopped ASAP.
Why do you want to bring ancestors into this? This country was mostly built by European immigrants over the last 4 centuries. They sent their children to several major wars, WW1, WW2, the Vietnam war etc. They sacrificed a lot during the great depression. They opened America up for immigration to help them build the country better. What about you sir, what did you do? You probably came here on a body shopped H1 Visa, or you came here to do an MS and started doing contract IT work. Suddenly you are the expert on US History and ancestries. In India, they are ruthless to non Hindus and Hindus of other castes. They come here and demand things. Do not pass S.386, I will call write to my representative and senator.
It’s funny you say that considering that we “Indian scumbags†have built your economy. We are educated enough to hold such high jobs. If we were to be deported as you say the us economy would collapse, and your country would be left in ruins. This is because people like you, uneducated and misinformed, will not be able to fill the highly skilled jobs. So before you make a comment please learn about it and please don’t be racist. It doesn’t look good these days.
At the outset, Please convey our sincere thanks to this amazing master piece.
People read about Mike Lee a 100 times, admirers, so I wanted to correct a minor flaw in this master piece.
its just that attention could go to a minor flaw in a master piece. because its just an online edition.
Mike lee mentioned about S386 in only one town hall at UTAH which is the one at Davis county Library- Farmington. The entire conversation recorded here was only from that one town hall. There was nothing about S386 in the other one.
There is a mistake in my comment. wish to correct it.
The location is DRAPER CITY HALL – SALT LAKE COUNTY. (incorrectly mentioned as Farmington)