Open letter from Industry leaders and Immigration Voice
 

http://www.competeamerica.org/hill/l...sSignOnLtr.pdf

Immigrationvoice is a cosignatory of this letter and we are working with business leaders to push for these 3 bills

July 17, 2008
Dear Member of Congress:
As U.S. employers, education institutions, and trade associations representing the future of American
innovation, we are writing to urge your support for three bills that will make necessary incremental
adjustments to the employment-based (EB) green card system. The measures – H.R. 6039, H.R. 5921
and H.R. 5882 – enjoy bipartisan support and should be enacted without delay this year.
America’s scientific and technological leadership is at a crossroads. To remain the world leader in
innovation, U.S. employers must have access to much-needed and sought-after highly educated talent –
including scientists, researchers, teachers and medical professionals. Foreign-born professionals make
great contributions to the U.S. economy and create good, high-paying jobs for all Americans.
U.S. employers rely on EB green cards to keep foreign-born talent living, working and innovating in
America. Yet, despite the critical importance of these visas, Congress has failed to address the well
documented backlogs in the EB green card system that leave some foreign-born, highly educated
professionals waiting over six to 10 years to receive a permanent resident visa.
The three bills will address many shortcomings in the EB green card system. For example:
• H.R. 6039, by exempting highly educated, foreign-born students earning an advanced degree in
science, technology, engineering or mathematics from a U.S. university from the annual EB green
card limit, would help U.S. employers retain these talented individuals in the U.S. workforce. For
example, foreign nationals comprise half of the master’s and 70 percent of the Ph.D.s in electrical
engineering from U.S. universities.
• H.R. 5921 will help put an end to multi-year wait times by eliminating unduly restrictive per
country limits on EB green cards.
• H.R. 5882 will help to reduce visa backlogs by “recapturing” EB green cards from prior years
that went unused due to government processing delays and making them available immediately to
those who meet the requirements.
Without these incremental reforms, U.S. employers will continue to be crippled in the global competition
for the world’s best talent, as more and more extremely valuable professionals from around the world
take their education and abilities to competitors abroad.
While permanent reforms for the EB green card system will be critical to U.S. employers’ long-term
ability to hire and retain key worldwide talent, H.R. 6039, H.R. 5921 and H.R. 5882 are common sense,
incremental reforms that should be enacted this year. We again urge your support for these important
measures.
Sincerely,

excellent
 

This is an excellent effort. We better to send this letter to all congress members along with the white house.

I've seen more such letters than I care come and go. And as far as I could remember, none of them ever worked. It'd be silly to think that a letter crafted by a secretary in 30 minutes will change anything on the complicated immigration issue. But people love it because it's so much easier than painstakingly calling each law maker and explain our ordeal.

Yes the letter itself is not going to change the complicated immigration issue. The industry is just going to give a lip service to the issues, ultimately hardships due to GC backlog is endured by the individuals. Individuals should take up the lead on the backlog elimination issues, we should use these kinds of letters as a support for the legislation aimed at backlog reduction. Still IV members have to carry the workload of contacting the lawmakers and pushing for the Lofgren bills.

Great job IV for working with CompeteAmerica

Great Work IV
 

Great, Folks plaese use this letter to contact your congressman's office

Good effort
 

That's too dismissive. This is not simply a letter drafted by a secy, but part of the > 3 1/2 year long campaign which consisted of other efforts too icluding letters, webfaxes and phonecalls.

Constant nagging, and never letting this get out of their sight should be part of the strategy. May be we'll eventually be able to touch the conscience of people who have been blocking this relief for so long.

I 100% agree with you. This letter is no good because all of us will not get our GCs immediately after this letter was issued. If that is the measure of how everything is judged, then everything we all say or do is worthless because it doesn't by itself help anybody on this forum to get their GCs.

Take it easy pal. In the legislative process it is one step at a time. I think such letters are designed with the purpose of being used as campaign tool to show the legislatures that there is a broad support for the proposed bills from large companies, industry coalitions and LEGAL high-skilled employees, business groups etc. Now how easy it is to show up along side in the list of companies and industry groups that include the likes of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Ebay. BTW, on the lighter note, I did not see your name mentioned on this list or for that matter any such list ;)

If nothing else, this letter is a testimony that we have come a long way in making our voices heard. Hope you agree with that.

a step in long voyage
 

I think we all understand that merely writing a letter will not bring the desired reforms. However, its an adequate tool to remind the law makers that something is long pending and needs their attention. Its something like a "gentle reminder", when someone receive too many "gentle reminders", one fine day they take a note of it and act on it. Anyway, apart from all these thoughts, this is also one way to keep people excited, and give them an assurance that something is going on. I think our biggest problem is how to keep everybody engaged and excited about the cause. These are just small steps to show that we are active.

If you think the letters do not work, tell us what would work. We will work together and take that up.

It is very easy to criticize. But very difficult to execute an idea. It is not easy to get various organizations, company leaders to agree on 3 bills, let alone be willing to put their signature on a letter.

This is the first time, Immigrationvoice has been able to take part in this effort where Industry leaders, organizations and Immigrationvoice have together brought this issue to the attention of the lawmakers. Also note the absence of H1B in the letter. This is a big victory for us as industry and other organizations have begun to understand the greencard issue and how important it is to fix.

Even if the bills do not pass, this is definitely a big step towards Immigrationvoice goals.

Cir
 

CIR is not guaranteed next year since conservative ("blue dog" democrats) also are opposed to completely liberal amnesty for the undocumented.

Besides CIR will open up the flood gates of additional millions of illegals applying and clogging USCIS.

Good Work IV...People may not see the benefit in this...but industry is another strong lobbying tool that we can use. After all you are employed by your company and they are the ones needing foreign individuals as they cannot meet the demand locally, so their push would be substantial to this movement.

IV please keep the whole community abreast of the latest on this, a response from Congress and do let the members know how we can help with this initiative...

Thx again for a great job!!!!

Papu,
I would like to thank you for all your efforts and diligence in IV process. The letters and all are working great as they are creating a visibility of our problem. But I believe along with the letters, we IV members should organize a big rally in DC again. The point of all this will be to put more pressure on Congress.

The other advantage will be media attention, right now everyone has their eye on DC as presidential elections are approaching closer. Doing a big rally will buy us free media attention, this will again work as an important tool for us.


What do you think?
Also members who are questioning the implicitly of these letters should re-evaluate all the measures IV took in the past. These letters have worked to bring about a change, all we need now is a little bit more push.

Please don't spread dubious messages about the joint efforts of so many IV members in the past. Lets keep doing what is expected.

Thanks,

Thankyou IV team.

wonder whats' the reason..
 

I heard Zoe Lofgren tell that Republicans do not want to bring these bills up to the floor.Some say it is the CHC. Wonder who is blocking this : CHC, Republicans or Pelosi ? If we know the reason we can focus on that piece and lobby..

Well, I have said in my reply what would work. That is to do the hard and dirty job of calling the representatives one at a time, explain to them our situations, and try to gain their support. I have been doing that myself, along with many IV members, but we still need more people to participate, because the power comes from numbers.

As to the letter you posted, well it may be the first time IV got companies to write and sign them. But this is at least the third such letter I saw in the past two years, some from big companies, other from state governers. Have they changed anything? No. Were they a 'big victory' or a 'big step'? I doubt it. It's not like you have converted some anti-highly skilled immigration companies to pro-immigration companies. As far as I can tell, these companies have been holding pro-highly skilled immigration postion since many years ago. They favor US educated STEM, they favor increasing EB quota. So why is it so hard to get them agree on something they have been advocating?

btw: I know work is tough and criticizing is easy. But as a public organization, if you can't take criticizes, you can't improve.