Legislation and Policy Initiatives

Compete America supports several bipartisan bills that have been introduced in the U.S House and Senate that would make incremental reforms to the EB green card system:

• H.R. 6039 / S. 3084: A bill to exempt highly educated, foreign-born students earning an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from a U.S. university from the annual EB green card limit.  Lead sponsors on H.R. 6039: Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Chris Cannon (R-UT); lead sponsors on S. 3084: Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH).

• H.R. 5882: A bill to “recapture” EB green cards that Congress authorized in the past but that went unused before the end of the fiscal year because of government processing delays.  Lead sponsors: Reps. Lofgren and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI).  This legislation has been endorsed by over 70 employer, family and community-based organizations and was approved by the House Subcommittee on Immigration on Friday, August 1, 2008.  A similar proposal received the support of 85 U.S. Senators in 2005.

• H.R. 5921: A bill to eliminate per country limits on EB green card distribution, thus removing artificial bottlenecks for employees from high-demand countries.  Lead sponsors: Reps. Lofgren and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA).

While Compete America supports these incremental reforms, the coalition continues to urge for permanent reform of the immigration system for highly educated workers.

Compete America will also continue to urge reforms that:

• Ensure that U.S. employers and universities have the ability to recruit and retain highly educated foreign-born talent; and

• Reform outdated caps on H-1B visas that currently prevent U.S. employers from hiring H-1B workers until October 2007.

For an archive of this and other legislative activity from the 109th Congress, click here.