The U.S. is badly in need of highly skilled employees who are readily available and capable. Reform is needed to facilitate an increase of the number of employees from abroad to meet the needs of industry and for qualified professionals.
For many skilled workers and their families from abroad the door has been shut to many applicants for employment based green cards from oversubscribed countries. The annual cap per country of 20,000 has created a back log of almost 7 years for Mexico, as much as 10 years for India, over 6 years from the Philippines and 6 years from China. This is extremely frustrating for skilled nationals and also an inability for us to obtain these employees from these countries.
A new bill could resolve this harsh back log. This bill proposes to include spouses and children in the principal alien’s count and thereby these immediate relatives will not diminish the available numbers from these oversubscribed countries.
The new Act will end preferences for siblings of U.S. citizens, instead creating a greater admission for those with college degrees, who have knowledge of English and who principally come from under represented countries.
Congress has indicated its plan to expand temporary visas for H1B professionals from a present annual quota of 85,000 to 135,000. In the past H1B quota numbers have often been used up within the first month after each April. H1B’s will now be able to change employers more easily than before. Often companies have used this difficulty in changing employers to frighten their H1B’s with below market salaries because it had been known how difficult it was to change employment. Abuses by employers who outsource much of their work to foreigners would be restricted by requiring all companies here to limit their employment of foreign aliens to less than 50% of their staff.
