STEM Jobs Act of 2012
Floor Speech
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I have long been a champion of creating a green card program for foreign students with advanced STEM degrees from America's great research universities. Coming from Silicon Valley, I'm fortunate enough to see firsthand the new technologies, the new companies, the new jobs that such innovators create every day in the district I represent.
There's no question that a STEM green card program is the right thing to do for our country. For that reason, it pains me greatly to say I can't support this flawed bill. I can't support a bill that pits immigrant communities against each other, that sets a terrible precedent for addressing our broken immigration system that is indefensibly designed to reduce immigration while purporting to increase it, and that harms American workers. I certainly admire the gentleman from Arizona on his Staple Act. I know that he has pushed for this over the Congresses. But his Staple Act did not eliminate the Diversity Visa program, as this does.
Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that a STEM visa program is critical to the future of this country--and I agree. But if that's true, why poison the bill with an unrelated provision to eliminate the Diversity Visa program? There's no reason that giving a green card to one person should mean taking one away from someone else, but that is exactly what the bill asks us to do.
My colleagues are fond of saying they support legal immigration, but this bill shows quite the opposite. Supporters of legal immigration would not have to kill one immigration program to benefit another; nor would they agree to a Grover Norquist-style ``no new immigration'' pledge that will continue to strangle our immigration system for years to come. If we were to accept a zero-sum premise, how could we craft meaningful solutions for farmers and agricultural workers; for DREAMers, who were brought here as children; or for those families with loved ones waiting abroad in decades-long queues?
This bill, however, is even worse than that. It is actually designed to reduce legal immigration. Taking 55,000 green cards from one category and putting them in another may seem like an even trade, but it is not if the new category is drafted to ensure that green cards go unused.
According to the National Science Foundation, American universities currently graduate about 30,000 foreign students with degrees that would qualify them for green cards under this bill. Assuming every single one of them wanted to stay and could find an employer willing to offer them a permanent job, which is certainly not the case, that would still leave 25,000 green cards unused. This bill shamefully prevents those green cards from being used to help other employment and family-based immigrants suffering in long backlogs. And I would note that those who have their labor certification based on a bachelor of science degree, if you're born in India, you're facing a 70-year wait. Yet this bill would not allow the traditional policy of having visas trickle down when they are unused. That's not the way the immigration system works. I believe the only reason the bill was written in this fashion is to satisfy anti-immigrant organizations who have long lobbied for reduced levels of immigration.
In an attempt to appear more pro-immigrant, the authors point to a new ``family-friendly'' position. But looks can be deceiving. Currently, a lack of green cards means that a category of family-based immigrant--the spouses and minor children of U.S. permanent residents--have to wait about 2 years overseas before they can rejoin their families.
Instead of providing critical green cards to these nuclear families, the STEM bill offers temporary V visas with three significant catches: the family members must first spend at least 1 year overseas; unlike the original V visa, created by a Republican Congress in 2000, the new visas prohibit family members already here from participating; and unlike the original V visa, recipients are prohibited from working.
With all the talk about moving forward on immigration, this is a step back from where Republicans were just 12 years ago. When I hear allegations of fraud in this program, I just have to say that is absurd. In the year 2007, the General Accountability Office found no documented evidence that Diversity Visa immigrants posed a terrorist or other threat. The DV recipients go through the same immigration, criminal, and national security background checks that everyone goes through when they seek lawful permanent residence.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. CONYERS. I yield the gen tle lady an additional 1 minute.
Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. In fact, the State Department was the first to use facial recognition technology to reduce fraud.
Finally, I would say that this does not do enough to protect workers. I'll give you an example. Computer and information science research scientists in level one for labor certification may be paid $86,736. That's what's in the labor cert. But their median income in Silicon Valley is $133,000. So we have an idea that we shouldn't underpay the foreign scientists. We should pay them the same as Americans. This bill fails in that way.
Finally, I would note that the Competitive Enterprise Institute has come out against this bill because it has these extraneous and divisive provisions. We need to move beyond the politics of zero-sum immigration. Those policies are holding America back. They are holding our prosperity hostage.
I will place into the Record the Competitive Enterprise Institute letter in opposition to this bill.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. I just want to address the fraud warning issue. This is a warning to applicants not to be scammed; it wasn't a warning that there was fraud.
The idea that you would try, as a terrorist, to come in to be in a pool of 20 million people--it's been that high--and be in a lottery that only awards 55,000 is almost as absurd as the ``terror baby'' suggestion of a few years ago.
I would just note that the rollover of visas actually is so restrictive that you only roll over if you apply that year. This will not even cure the backlog. It is a fraud.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I think it's important that we have the facts from the National Science Foundation on immigration from Africa.
According to NSF, there are about 13,000 students from Africa. The vast majority of them are bachelor's degree candidates who are not eligible for visas under this bill, and the vast majority of those in graduate school are not in STEM fields. Again, they're not eligible for visas under this bill.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to correct the record. I recall when Democrats were in the majority, we passed the DREAM Act. We only got 8 Republican votes to pass that DREAM Act.
Further, the way this bill is written, if you were brought here as a baby in violation of the immigration law, but now you're getting your Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, you're not eligible for one of these visas. This is written in a way to divide people. It's not even an honest effort to capture the best and brightest.
And further, on African immigration, last year we had 6,218 Diversity Visa recipients from Nigeria. Taking the chairman's number of 1,200--I don't want to get in an argument--in master's and Ph.D. in STEM fields, that's the enrollment. As you know, most Ph.D. programs are 6-year programs, most Master's programs are 2-year programs. So those actually graduating would be a small fraction of that, a few hundred each year. So we would be seeing, for example, a huge reduction in immigration from Nigeria, just as an example.
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Ms. ZOE LOFGREN of California. Mr. Speaker, over the last few days in the Rules Committee, during debate on the rule, and in today's debate, we've had a common refrain from our friends on the other side of the aisle. Over and over, they say there's agreement on STEM visas, and we shouldn't let politics get in the way. For the good of America and our economy, they say, we should come together on this bipartisan issue and do what's right. I agree.
By all accounts, there is nothing but support for a STEM visa program to attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world, and we support STEM visas. They support STEM visas. Everybody supports STEM visas. So why on Earth aren't we just voting on STEM visas?
According to our colleagues, that's the message we should take away from the election. Even though we may not agree on everything, we should put partisanship aside and find areas of common ground for the good of the country, and that's exactly what this motion to recommit would do.
This motion presents us with a clean STEM visa program, copied word for word from the underlying bill, but without the unrelated measures. If it's true that this vote is about creating STEM visas and not about eliminating unrelated immigration programs, then you should vote for this motion. We should put words into action and vote for a clean STEM bill.
As we all know, this motion will only amend the bill. It will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. The bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended.
Let's be clear, a vote against this motion is a vote against STEM visas. It says that you care more about eliminating the unrelated Diversity Visa program than you care about getting a STEM visa program. Eliminating the Diversity Visa program has absolutely nothing to do with STEM visas. It's an unfortunate attack on immigrants and minorities, and it has no place in the STEM bill.
It's also remarkably tone-deaf, considering the recent election just 3 weeks ago. The minority and immigrant communities sent a powerful message to our friends on the other side of the aisle. Our friends say they heard that message. They acknowledged the need to reach out to those communities and take a different tack with respect to immigration.
Well, actions speak louder than words. If you really want to reach out to minorities, perhaps you shouldn't start with a bill that eliminates the Diversity visas. And if you want to reach out to immigrants, perhaps you shouldn't start with a bill that pits immigrant communities against each other.
The choice between STEM immigrants and Diversity immigrants is one we are being forced to make. We do not need to make it.
When we discuss offsets in the budget context, it's about money and deficits and debt, but here we're talking about people. Is that who we are as a country? I, for one, do not believe we should offset families, spouses, or children. If you care about immigrants, you know they help grow our economy and renew our spirit. They are not pawns in a zero-sum game.
The motion to recommit also includes critical protections for U.S. workers absent from the underlying bill. We all acknowledge that a STEM visa program is important. It can grow our economy, but surely it should not come at the expense of the salaries of American workers. We should not have a race to the bottom on wages.
You know, a lot of the discussion today about the zero-sum theory on which this bill has been presented seems to imply that unless you have a graduate degree, you are not really going to contribute to this country. That's simply false. When you think about some of the great innovators--Sergey Brin, born in Russia, cofounder of Google, in my county, that employs thousands and thousands of Americans, he didn't come here because of his degree. He came with his parents. Jerry Yang, founder of Yahoo!, grew up in east San Jose. He didn't come because he got admitted to Stanford. He came with his family. Andy Grove, a legend in Intel, he didn't come because of his degree. He came as a refugee.
I am reminded of my grandfather and what he brought to this country. At age 16, he got on a boat. He never saw his parents again. He never got a degree. He came to America because he wanted to be free. He worked hard all his life. I went to Stanford University. I was the first in my family to go to college. But I am here today in Congress because my grandfather--without an education but with a lot of heart, with enough get-up-and-go to get up and go--came to become an American.
I am sure that if you examine the history of so many Members of Congress, you would find in their family trees people who had enough get-up-and-go to come to the United States. We are now proud Members of Congress in that tradition of America.
I urge you, support the motion to recommit. Don't turn our backs on immigration.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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