House to consider limited GOP immigration bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Repub­li­cans still smart­ing from their poor show­ing among His­pan­ics in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion are plan­ning a vote next week on immi­gra­tion leg­is­la­tion that would both expand visas for for­eign sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy stu­dents and make it eas­ier for those with green cards to bring their imme­di­ate fam­i­lies to the U.S.

Repub­li­can lead­ers made it clear after the elec­tion that the party was ready to get seri­ous about over­haul­ing the nation’s dys­func­tional immi­gra­tion sys­tem, a top pri­or­ity for His­panic com­mu­ni­ties. Tak­ing up what is called the STEM Jobs Act dur­ing the lame-duck ses­sion could be seen as a first step in that direction.

The House voted on a STEM bill — stand­ing for sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing and math­e­mat­ics — in Sep­tem­ber, but under a pro­ce­dure requir­ing a two-thirds major­ity. It was defeated, with more than 80 per­cent of Democ­rats vot­ing against it, because it off­set the increase in visas for high-tech grad­u­ates by elim­i­nat­ing another visa pro­gram that is avail­able for less-educated for­eign­ers, many from Africa.

Repub­li­cans are chang­ing the for­mula this time by adding a pro­vi­sion long sought by some immi­gra­tion advo­cates — expand­ing a pro­gram that allows the spouses and minor chil­dren of peo­ple with per­ma­nent res­i­dence, or green card, to wait in the United States for their own green cards to be granted.

There are some 80,000 of these family-based green cards allo­cated every year, but there are cur­rently about 322,000 hus­bands, wives and chil­dren wait­ing in this cat­e­gory and on aver­age peo­ple must wait more than two years to be reunited with their fam­i­lies. In that past that wait could be as long as six years.

The House pro­posal would allow fam­ily mem­bers to come to the U.S. one year after they apply for their green cards, but they wouldn’t be able to work until they actu­ally got the card. It applies to the fam­i­lies of green card hold­ers who marry after get­ting their res­i­dency permits.

Bruce Mor­ri­son, a for­mer Demo­c­ra­tic con­gress­man from Con­necti­cut who chaired the House immi­gra­tion sub­com­mit­tee and authored a 1990 immi­gra­tion law, said the bill nei­ther increases the num­ber of green cards nor gives peo­ple green cards early. But peo­ple “get the most impor­tant ben­e­fit of being able to live legally in the United States with their spouses.”

Mor­ri­son, an immi­gra­tion pol­icy lob­by­ist who advo­cates for groups such as Amer­i­can Fam­i­lies United, called the bill a stepping-stone to more com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion reform, That Repub­li­cans ini­ti­ated it “to me is a pos­i­tive ges­ture that they want to do busi­ness on this sub­ject,” he said

Megan Whit­te­more, spokes­woman for House Major­ity Leader Eric Can­tor, R-Va., a key pro­po­nent of the STEM Act, said the bill is “fam­ily friendly, help­ing spouses and minor chil­dren who would oth­er­wise be sep­a­rated from their fam­i­lies for extended peri­ods of time.”

The bill will be taken up this time under nor­mal pro­ce­dures requir­ing only a major­ity vote, and it is almost cer­tain to pass the Republican-led House. It remains to be seen whether it will engen­der enough Demo­c­ra­tic sup­port to give it momen­tum as it heads to the Democratic-controlled Senate.

It would give 55,000 green cards a year to doc­toral and mas­ters grad­u­ates in the STEM fields. The mea­sure, strongly backed by U.S. high-tech com­pa­nies, would make it eas­ier for peo­ple trained in the United States to put their skills to work for Amer­i­can com­pa­nies rather than non-American competitors.

But the leg­is­la­tion would still elim­i­nate the Diver­sity Visa Lot­tery Pro­gram which gives out a sim­i­lar 55,000 green cards a year to those from coun­tries, includ­ing many in Africa, with tra­di­tion­ally low rates of immi­gra­tion to the U.S. That prompted the House’s His­panic Cau­cus, Con­gres­sional Black Cau­cus and Con­gres­sional Asian Pacific Amer­i­can Cau­cus to all come out against it in September.

The three cau­cuses said Repub­li­cans were try­ing to increase legal immi­gra­tion for peo­ple they want by end­ing immi­gra­tion for peo­ple they don’t want.

Crys­tal Williams, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Amer­i­can Immi­gra­tion Lawyers Asso­ci­a­tion, said the bill is a mes­sage from Repub­li­cans that “we are here and we are ready to talk about immi­gra­tion reform.”

But she said she doubted it will make much progress in the Sen­ate dur­ing the short lame-duck ses­sion. Peo­ple “are now start­ing to think about broader reform,” she said, adding that a lim­ited bill that doesn’t increase visas won’t get a lot of support.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Nov 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.