WSJ: Executive Immigration Action May Include Legal Reforms

On September 18, 2014 the Wall Street Journal reported that after Labor Day President Obama may announce executive actions to give "safe harbor and work permits to qualifying illegal immigrants". Business leaders and interest groups who have been meeting with the White House throughout the Summer have requested overhaul measures for the legal workforce. One proposal would exclude dependents from the numerical cap on employment-based green cards, which is now 140,000 a year. The change could, in effect, double the number of green cards available. A second proposal would "recapture" unused employment green cards from previous years, which could produce more than 200,000 new green cards.

Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio, Coons Introduce High-Skilled Immigration Bill

Bipartisan Legislation Reforms Employment-Based H-1B and Student Visas, Increases Access to Employment-Based Green Cards, and Promotes STEM Education

U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) today introduced legislation, the Immigration Innovation (I2) Act of 2013, to bring long-overdue reforms to the nation’s immigration laws for high-skilled workers. The bill focuses on areas vital to ensuring the United States can maintain its competitiveness in the global economy: the quantity of employment-based nonimmigrant visas (H-1B visas), allowing for their growth depending on the demands of the economy while making reforms to protect workers; increased access to green cards for high-skilled workers by expanding the exemptions and eliminating the annual per country limits for employment based green cards; and reforming the fees on H-1B and green cards so those fees can be used to promote American worker retraining and education.

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STEM Green Cards Part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Proposal

The “gang of 8”, Senators Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake has released its Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform on January28, 2013.

In the section of the proposal entitled “Improving our Legal Immigration System and Attracting the World’s Best and Brightest” the proposal philosophically embraces efficient green cards for STEM graduates in the following language:  

"The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.”

Dueling STEM Bills

The House is expected to vote on Friday, November 30, 2012 on the “STEM Jobs Act,” introduced by Lamar Smith (R-Texas).  The bill would create 55,000 green cards for holders of advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math from U.S. institutions. The bill would also create a special temporary visa for foreign students planning to study STEM fields at U.S. universities, which would make it easier for them to become permanent residents upon graduation. 

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D San Jose) opposes the elimination of the visa lottery which is the source of the extra visa numbers used by the STEM Jobs Act.  Ms. Lofgren has introduced a Silicon Valley-friendly competing STEM green card bill that does not contain restrictionist  provisions.

Democrats worry that passage of the Smith bill in the lame duck session of Congress will weaken chances for comprehensive immigration reform measures that the administration has made a legislative priority in President Obama’s second term.

Obama STEM Reforms

This DHS Webpage discusses the Obama administration's STEM immigration measures.

DHS Reforms To Attract And Retain Highly Skilled Immigrants (Jan. 2012).
File: OBAMA STEM Reforms.pdf