Remove cap on employment visas

One of the first commitments I made to voters in 2008 was to address immigration. At that time, I argued that we would never adequately address our illegal immigration problem until we fix legal immigration. With that in mind, I introduced HR3012, The Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, which recently passed the House Judiciary Committee without a single member on either side of the aisle objecting.

Under the status quo, the total number of employment-based immigrant visas made available to natives of any single foreign country in a year cannot exceed 7 percent of the total number of such visas made available in that year.

While per-country limits make some limited sense in the area of family immigration, they make no sense in the context of employment-based immigration. American companies treat all highly skilled immigrants equally regardless of where they come from. Our immigration policy should do the same.

HR3012 creates a fair and equitable, "first-come, first-served" system. Under this system, U.S. companies will be able to focus on what they do best — hiring smart people to create products, services and jobs for Americans.

Per-country caps are the antithesis of the free market. Companies recruit employees based on their talent, not their country of origin. Hiring and keeping the best people, whether from America or from around the world is the primary objective of American companies. This bill will help employers meet that objective.

The per-country limits have created an untenable situation in which the majority of major U.S. technology companies' foreign workers are waiting many years for green cards while already working in the U.S. The uncertainty of such waits results in job shops, knowledge transfer, and off-shoring of American jobs.

The long wait for green cards creates a situation in which many of the most talented workers decide to forgo the U.S. economy, opting instead to build the economies of nations with whom we compete. These are well-compensated workers who might otherwise be happy to stay in America, invest in local communities and even start new companies that ultimately generate new American jobs.

Fears that these changes will lead to an influx of cheap foreign labor are unfounded. Two concerns in particular rely on the false assumption that the removal of these caps will have a negative impact on American workers.