Washington – Setting off a battle with anti-immigration and pro-union lawmakers, a Senate committee wants to increase by 46 percent the number of highly skilled foreign workers U.S. companies can hire.
The proposal is deep inside a larger piece of legislation cutting federal spending and raising revenue.
Senators on the Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration law, proposed raising the fees companies pay for visas for highly skilled workers. As a concession to businesses, senators also agreed to allow companies to hire more of those workers.
They most often are hired by high-tech companies and the health-care industry.
The Senate is selling the visas to big business and increasing overall legal U.S. immigration by one-third, charged Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.
“The committee did this in the dark of the night, without hearings and without public comment, because that’s the only way they can get away with it,” Tancredo said. “When this plan is brought to the light of day, the American people will be outraged.”
Yet businesses say the increase in skilled worker limits still falls far short of what’s needed.
The current cap on visas for highly skilled workers is 65,000 a year. Because of waiting lists, it’s met before the year even starts. The proposed change would allow an additional 30,000 a year for the next five years.
The Senate committee originally proposed increasing the number of visas by 60,000 a year. Because organized labor objected, that number was cut in half.
“Employers are using temporary visa programs … to turn permanent, well-paying jobs with benefits into temporary jobs that pay reduced wages and offer no benefits,” Will Samuel with the AFL-CIO wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee chairman, Arlen Specter, R-Pa., objecting to the proposal.
The number of such workers allowed in the U.S. previously was much higher. In 1991, there was no limit, and in 2003, it was capped at 195,000 a year.
The Senate proposal is based on the idea that in those earlier years, many of the visas that were allowed were not actually used.
As part of the Judiciary Committee’s package of changes, there is also a proposal to raise the number of green cards given to highly skilled workers by 90,000 a year. Those are for workers who stay at least six years. Fees on those visas also would rise.
The full Senate is expected to vote on the proposal Thursday. If it passes, it will have to be merged with a House proposal to cut and offset federal spending. The House proposal raised fees for the visas but did not raise the caps.
Angelo Amador of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said he believes there’s a good chance House Republicans, who traditionally are pro-business, will allow the Senate proposal to stay in the combined Senate-House measure.
