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Congress Is About To End Immigration Of Skilled Workers In The Us
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</h3><h4><i>by <a href=”http://discuss.ilw.com/content.php?7114-Article-Private-Refugee-Sponsorship-Gains-Crucial-New-Support-by-Matthew-La-Corte#bio”>
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Ira J. Kurzban<!–END AUTHOR NAME–>
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At the same time the Trump White House is crushing the hopes and
aspirations of asylum seekers and those seeking a better life in. the
U.S. through illegal practices and policies, the Congress is about to
seriously disrupt, if not end, immigration of high skilled workers into
the U.S. for the foreseeable future. And they are doing it <em>without every having a hearing </em>on the effects of the
legislation!
<br/>
<br/>
With lightening speed and without a single hearing, the House of
Representatives passed HR 1044 back in July—the misnamed “Fairness
for High Skilled Immigration Act”. This legislation has been around for
years; a gift to the tech industry to grant permanent residency to
Indian nationals, allowing them to use all available visas in the
skilled worker categories for most of the next decade. Partly because
some Democrats want to help friends in the tech industry while many
Republicans hope to severely limit employment based green cards, but
mostly because this legislation’s actual effect is not widely known,
the bill has had bi-partisan support. But it is terrible public policy.
It’s time to speak out.
<br/>
<br/>
For many years, Indian nationals in the computer fields have rightly
complained that they are being held in limbo rather than becoming
lawful permanent residents. This was never an accident. IT employers
have a business model of hiring permanent immigrants on temporary
visas. The current waiting time for residency is over 10 years. Do the
math: in just one of the employment based categories (EB-2) allocated
40,040 immigration visas a year, there are already 550,000 nationals
waiting for residency, of which 512,000 are Indian nationals. HR 1044
(and its Senate counterpart S.386) end per country distribution of
green cards, which after a transition period, would essentially give
all the visas to Indian nationals. This legislation does not add a
single green card for any category.
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A great deal of misinformation and outright lies have been spread about
these issues. One is the claim that the backlog is the result of the
“per country cap”, which (it is said} discriminates against people born
in India. <em>That is not true.</em>
<br/>
<br/>
As immigration lawyers, we know better. The per country cap – which is
really distribution, and not a limit on individual source countries
-was enacted in 1965 to ensure that American immigration is open to
individuals from all countries. A great irony of the way the current
debate is so polarized — again, the result of a deliberate strategy by
tech employers to spread false claims -is that the per-country
distribution system in 1965 help to <em>create </em>significant
immigration from India and many other countries in the first place. The
“per country cap” replaced a quota system that explicitly discriminated
against all nations outside of Europe (including India}, and even
within Europe, e.g. Italy got far less visas than northern European
nations.
<br/>
<br/>
Proponents for this ill-considered legislation often ask “Why should
India with more than a billion people be limited to the same cap for
green cards as Iceland, with 300,000?” We know that’s not how it works:
the misleading “cap” rhetoric claims that no nation can get more than
7% of the total. Yet over the 10 years from 2007-17, Indian nationals
received 280,523 employment-based green cards; Chinese nationals,
130,248; South Korean nationals, 115,274, and Philippine nationals,
84,792 green cards. China has a substantially larger population, yet
workers born in India received more than <em>twice the number </em>of
employment-based green cards than workers born in China. That India has
gotten more than twice as many green cards as the world’s largest
nation does not indicate a system biased against people born in India.
<br/>
<br/>
And Iceland? In 2016, it got 57 employment-based green cards. In 2017,
42. The ostensible “cap” which supporters of this zero-sum legislation
claim sets aside 9,800 employment based green cards for Iceland,
actually distributes more than 9,700 of that “cap” every year to
high-demand countries – including India. The per country distribution
system uses a “cap” that does not limit green cards to ensure they go
to meet demand. Tens of thousands of immigration visas that the
proponents of this legislation claim are withheld from India, actually
go to Indians.
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The backlog isn’t caused by per-country distribution. It’s caused by
the overall number of employment-based green cards. There simply are
not enough visas for the demand. The answer is not to fight over the
few visas given each year; the answer is to have a larger number of
visas to the benefit of the U.S. economy. Simply, we need more visas.
<br/>
<br/>
HR 1044 and S.386 in lifting the per country cap do not solve that
problem. In fact, they simply make it worse:
<br/>
<br/>
First, high skilled workers in other areas – like health care and
medical research, two areas of great significance to the nation-will be
shut out of residency for well over a decade. Potential new Americans
in basic science,engineering, chemistry, physics, artificial
intelligence, climate change and many other fields who are not Indian
nationals will be discouraged from ever coming to the U.S- people
working to cure cancer and Parkinson’s, to fight climate change and
create whole new industries.
<br/>
<br/>
Second, the waiting times for residency under HR 1044/5386 will go from
10 years (for Indians now) to <em>17 years for everyone </em>after
Indian nationals use the visas.
<br/>
<br/>
Third, even the Indians already backlogged will not all get green
cards. There simply aren’t enough.<u></u><u></u>
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<br/>
Fourth, this legislation would also potentially harm DACA and TPS
recipients. If Trump is allowed to end these programs, those recipients
who have been waiting for a transition to employment-based visas would
suddenly be faced with having to leave the country and wait for green
cards outside of the U.S. for up to 17 years!
<br/>
<br/>
The attached charts simply apply the language of S. 386 and H.R. 1044
to official State Department and USCIS data, as would be done publicly
through a proper legislative hearing. Even counting shifts between
categories, what’s now a 10.5 year delay for Indians will become a 17
year delay in ten years – and include the whole world: every source
country, every profession and kind of skill. The total backlog for
employment-based residency goes from over 800,000 today, to 1.1 million
in 2029.
<br/>
<br/>
So a zero sum approach is no solution. Congress should not pit Indian
nationals against the rest of the world. Congress should enact a system
to make more permanent residency visas available, where healthcare (ad
particularly in rural areas) and scientific research are acknowledged
as priorities, a system that encourages skilled workers to remain in
the US. The Ellis Island model that defines <em>United States </em>
immigration means permanent residency and a direct route to
citizenship. If the U.S. had treated Alexander Graham Bell in the 19 <sup>th</sup> century the way this legislation would treat him in the
215 he’d have invented the telephone in Canada.<u></u><u></u>
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<br/>
Senator Rand Paul has introduced legislation to actually solve the
problem -* the BELIEVE Act-by doubling the number of visas, by ending
the ridiculous process of counting spouses and children of high skilled
workers when allocating visas, by giving some limited priority to
health care workers in rural areas, and by allowing early filing of
residency for such high skilled workers. There are other discussions in
the Senate involving both Republicans and Democrats focused on actually
solving the green card backlog for Indian H-1B workers without hurting
the rest of the world. This should not be a case of choosing IT workers
over nurses or doctors; Indians over the rest of the world. The
national interest is to give green cards quickly to those beneficiaries
who have qualified with their skills and shown that they are needed
without displacing qualified American workers.
<br/>
<br/>
As members of the immigration bar, it is our responsibility to make the
facts of these controversies clear.
<br/>
<br/>
The United States gets highly skilled immigrants from all over the
world, in a wide range of valuable professions. Tech employers want to
cut off all of that, simply because it is not IT workers from India. A
single industry wants to sole* source American immigration policy at
the expense of health care, cutting edge research, and well, the whole
world. Congress should at least hold a hearing before going over the
cliff.
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<p>Reprinted with permission.</p>
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About The Author<br/>
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<b>Mr. Kurzban</b> holds J.D. and M.A. Degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. with honors from Syracuse University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He is also an honorary fellow of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law where he was honored for his exemplified signal service to every aspect of the legal profession. He is also the recipient of the Wasserstein Fellowship at Harvard University Law School. Mr. Kurzban has been a partner in the law firm of Kurzban, Kurzban, Weinger, Tetzeli, & Pratt P.A. of Miami, Florida for over three decades and is the chair of the firm’s immigration department.
Mr. Kurzban is a past-national President and former General Counsel of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. He has received national recognition for his work in the immigration field. He has been named by the National Law Journal as one of the top twenty immigration lawyers in the United States; he has been listed for over a quarter century in the Best Lawyers in America for his work in immigration and employment law; and he has been listed repeatedly in Lawdragon as one of the top 500 lawyers in the United States. Mr. Kurzban was the first recipient of the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Award presented by the Chief Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. He is also the recipient of the Lawyers of the Americas Award for his work on behalf of human rights in this hemisphere given by the University of Miami, the Jack Wasserman Award for excellence in federal litigation and the Edith Lowenstein Memorial Award for excellence in the advancement of immigration law given by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and the Carol King Award for his efforts in immigration law given by the National Lawyers Guild. In 1986 Mr. Kurzban was selected by Newsweek Magazine in their commemorative issue on the hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty as one of 100 American heroes for his work on behalf of immigrants. He was also selected by Esquire Magazine as part of America’s New Leadership Class. Mr. Kurzban has also been named to Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law and Who’s Who in the World. He was also named as one of the world’s twenty three most highly regarded corporate immigration lawyers in the International Who’s Who of Corporate Immigration Lawyers and praised as a legend in the field who has written the definitive book on U.S. immigration law. Mr. Kurzban and the firm have been listed in Chambers as first tier lawyers in immigration law in 2010.
Mr. Kurzban has also litigated over fifty federal cases concerning the rights of aliens, including Jean v. Nelson, Commissioner v. Jean, and McNary v Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., all of which he argued before the United States Supreme Court. He has also litigated numerous cases under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victim Protection Act, including obtaining a $500 million judgment against Jean-Claude Duvalier, the former dictator Haiti.
Mr. Kurzban was also one of the founders of the Berkeley Law Foundation, a non-profit organization providing scholarships for law students and law graduates engaged in significant legal assistance programs throughout the United States. He is also one of the founders of Immigrants’ List, the first pro-immigrant political action committee in the United States.
Mr. Kurzban is an adjunct faculty member in Immigration and Nationality Law at the University of Miami School of Law and has lectured and published extensively in the field of immigration law, including articles in the Harvard Law Review, San Diego Law Review and other publications. He is the author of Kurzban’s Immigration Law Sourcebook, the most widely used one-volume immigration source in the United States.
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