News – EBI-Reforms.org

Rep. Kevin Yoder, a Republican member of Congress representing the Third District in Kansas, is the lead sponsor of H.R. 392. The bill addresses an issue that is important to the United States, American competitiveness and hundreds of thousands of individuals mired for years in employment-based immigrant backlogs due to the per-country limit. I interviewed Rep. Yoder about the bill and its prospects.

The wife of a man from India killed earlier this year in an alleged hate crime can stay in the United States for now after she initially lost her residency rights following her husband’s death. Yoder said he has corresponded with Dumala and met with her several times, including this month in Washington, D.C. Dumala was part of a group of Indian immigrants who came to support the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, according to Yoder, the bill’s lead sponsor. The legislation seeks to eliminate the per-country cap for employment-based immigrants, allowing green cards to instead be given on a first-come, first-served basis, Yoder said. As a result, they often have to wait two-to-three times longer than those from smaller countries to be approved for permanent residency, according to a news release from Yoder’s office.

Several senators have introduced bills this month to prevent the elimination of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA has granted work permits and lawful presence to more than 800,0000 young immigrants—known as Dreamers—who were brought to the U.S. as children. It would be an unquestionably positive thing for the United States if one of these bills becomes law, but DACA had a flaw that Congress can correct: it included only those young immigrants who are here illegally, excluding children of immigrants who came to the United States legally.

One fortunate aspect of President Trump’s bill to reduce legal immigration by 50 percent is that it has started the conversation on how to reform the nation’s legal immigration system—even if it started it on the wrong foot. Members of Congress now have an opportunity to respond with legislation that would increase legal immigration and fix the various problems with the system, which are numerous.

Most high-skilled immigrants initially enter the United States on temporary H-1B visas. H-1B workers can bring with them their spouses and minor children. As I have explained before, H-1B children live here, attend U.S. schools, grow up and attend U.S. universities, but on their 21st birthday, they lose their legal status, and the law requires them to self-deport if they cannot find another temporary legal status. Most stay at least for a few years longer by switching to a student visa, but this status prohibits work and expires again as soon as they graduate, leaving them in the same position they were before.

It is unclear what will happen to the massive backlog of Indians already waiting for visas if the Senate bill is ultimately enacted. Tens of thousands of applicants from India have been waiting for green cards for more than a decade. The backlog only continues to grow, with families separated for extended periods of time. The RAISE Act contains no provision to preserve the applications of these individuals already in the queue. This raises the prospect of these already in line having to start all over again while now competing for significantly fewer spots.

The definition of who “merits” immigration according to this bill is so narrow that even Nobel prize winners might not qualify to immigrate. A well-designed points system — thoughtfully applying the Canadian or Australian model, for example, to American labor market needs — could be a flexible and productive part of an immigration system for the 21st century. As these examples make clear, however, as written, the RAISE Act defines “merit” so narrowly and arbitrarily that there are far fewer immigrants qualified to enter based on their skills and abilities — raising the drawbridge and harming American prosperity in the process.

RAISE Act Is DACA Poison Pill

“The most immediate impact of the RAISE Act would be to eliminate the applications of more than 4 million people currently waiting in immigration backlogs.” Wiping out pending applications for family and employment-based immigrants is hypocritical for those who claim the “rule of law” banner. The bill has only two sponsors and one of them, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), argued as recently as 2013 that providing legal status to those who entered the U.S. illegally was unfair to “the many foreigners patiently obeying our laws and waiting overseas to immigrate legally.”