Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I also rise in support of this bipartisan proposal that provides two small, technical fixes to our country's immigration laws.

The bill removes the so-called ``per-country'' limits from applying to employment-based green cards. Current immigration law provides 140,000 green cards annually to employment-based immigrants. The law, however, prevents any one country from receiving more than 7 percent--or 9,800--of the total 140,000 visas. Because of this per-country limit, a country like India, with a population of 1.2 billion, is limited to the same number of visas as a country like Iceland, with a population of 300,000 and a lot of ice. This makes no sense and has resulted in decades-long backlogs for nationals from India, as well as China, and it makes it impossible for certain U.S. employers to attract and retain certain essential workers they need to help keep America competitive. Indeed, from India and China there are many people trained in STEM areas that we need in our country to keep competitive.

Eliminating the per-country limit for employment-based immigrants would level the playing field and treat everyone on a first-come, first-served basis. Because the bill does not provide additional green cards, it does not address the current overall backlogs. And that's unfortunate. But the bill does treat people and those backlogs more equitably. And to make sure that there are no unintended consequences, the elimination of the per-country limit is phased in slowly over 3 years.

The bill also raises the per-country limit for family-based immigrants from 7 percent to 15 percent. This would have a similar effect of making the treatment of such immigrants more equitable. These fixes are small, but they mean a great deal to the people they will help.

H.R. 3012 is supported by quite a few business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, Compete America, and the American Council on International Personnel. It is supported by advocates for American and immigrant families, including the Asian American Justice Center and the National Immigration Law Center.

I, like my colleague on the other side, want to thank the people who are above me on the committee level, the chairman in particular, Chairman Smith; and the ranking member of our subcommittee, Zoe Lofgren, who has worked with Congressman Chaffetz, who has worked so hard on this bill, as has Chairman Smith, to get this bipartisan bill through the committee and to the floor.

It's important that we do get bipartisan bills through, and because of our chairman, we have that opportunity on occasion to do such a thing. I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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