Sen. Michael Bennet Unveils STEM Visa Act To Help Promote High-Skilled Domestic Labor

U.S. Senator Michael Bennet today unveiled a bill to create a new green card category for foreign students pursuing advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The bill attempts to address the brain drain by reforming the visa system via provisions specifically designed for STEM-pursuant foreign students who are college-bound and those already in college who are here legally on student visas.

"Foreign college students with an advanced degree in STEM subjects would be eligible for the new STEM green card category, which would allow them to stay and work," Adam Bozzi, Communications Director for Sen. Bennet tells The Huffington Post.

"A separate provision would allow undocumented students who enroll in college and are taking STEM education to apply for student visas ... These students are DREAM eligible."

Under the bill, undocumented high school graduates would be eligible for temporary student visas and, upon their graduation from an American university, would "cut red tape" on the visa administration process to become more cost-effective and timely for employers. It would also create a new fund through the visa fees to promote the fields among K-12 institutions, provide field training for former military personnel and the unemployed, and provide STEM scholarships to low-income students.

The bill would also strive to make reforms to the high-skill guest worker H1-B and L visas, which have been regarded as "out of control" by the Economic Policy Institute think tank for loopholes that make it easy for employers to substitute U.S. workers for foreign workers.

The bill, Bennet argues, would help promote interest in STEM fields which are already facing unsettling vacancies.

"We are facing a shortage of workers in high-tech jobs, and more and more of our STEM degrees go to foreign students who leave the United States to work," Bennet said.

According to Bennet's office, "between one-half and two-thirds of all Ph.Ds awarded by U.S. universities in physics, economics, computer science, chemicals and other highly technical fields were earned by international students" in 2009.

Comments

[SocMaverick]

06:24 PM on 12/20/2011

Bennet is a minion to right-wing extremist, religiously bigoted activist, corporate fascist, billionaire plutocrat, Philip Anschutz. Bennet has already served Anschutz in the business of mergers-and-acquisitions that looted billions of dollars and threw thousands out of jobs. Bennet's campaign was funded by Anschutz and his corporate cronies in order to plant a mole in the Democratic Party to push policies that further enrich the most wealthy, that further empower the most powerful, and that further enslave the middle class to a impotent existence with no future and with poverty the only alternative.

[nothingchanges]

10:54 AM on 12/15/2011

Shortage of qualified workers?

Why should that be a surprise?

American higher education is based on ability to pay, rather than the ability to learn. There are literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of smart people that can't afford the education for those jobs, and those that can (on Mommy and Daddy's money) don't HAVE to work. They already have enough money.

Foreign labor is not the solution. Changes in how we educate our own is.

[Emma2011]

02:52 PM on 12/14/2011

STEM visa reform is important, but unfortunately it must be held hostage and be used as a bargaining chip to achieve broad legalization of the millions of suffering illegal aliens who can't catch a break. Likewise, farm labor visa reform and the Dream Act must be blocked for the same reason.

[des946]

02:41 PM on 12/14/2011

I only have one question: Will bright American citizen students who enter selective technical fields be given scholarships?

I certainly think that studentswho are American citizens and who have the qualified academic achievements should certainly be given preference to foreign students.

Oh, a secnd question is: "Who is paying the tuition for the foreign students?" One problem with the HB-1 visas is that they have potentially undermined the employment of many of our previously qualified people in techical fields and that unemplyment keeps them from being kept up to date on their industry skills. The abuses of the HB-1 program need to be addressed.

[Anthony Edward Weigel]

03:43 PM on 12/14/2011

des946 - H-1B petitioners have been paying untold hundreds of millions of dollars for the last 10 years to train U.S. workers in the form of $1500/$1000/$750/$500 training fees. The money has been given to the U.S. Department of Labor to administer. Ask them what they have done with it because there has been no accountability.

[DJMarian]

06:47 PM on 12/14/2011

It has no provision for paying anyone's tuition citizen or not, it only allows the students to remain in the country and work during school.

[ConnieDr]

02:30 PM on 12/14/2011

Just what we need, another visa to import more foreigners!

[ciskokid]

01:29 PM on 12/14/2011

America needs STEM students to energize American innovation and prosperity...seems like a laudable goal. The foreign student graduates may or may not choose to remain in the U.S.. while the undocumented who graduates will most likely choose to remain.

[Karissa36]

12:41 PM on 12/14/2011

"A separate provision would allow undocumented students who enroll in college and are taking STEM education to apply for student visas ... These students are DREAM eligible."

Under the bill, undocumented high school graduates would be eligible for temporary student visas and, upon their graduation from an American university, would "cut red tape" on the visa administration process to become more cost-effective and timely for employers."

How exactly is it that we know a high school senior is going to get a Ph.D? That's right, we don't. How about we give a green card to the two thirds of foreign students who already HAVE a Ph.D? Including this DREAM provision is just a little political ploy, to mollify immigrant activists, and it will be removed long before the bill is even voted on.

[voyager48]

12:53 PM on 12/14/2011

I have to smile at the gross generalizations of illegals being the best and brightest, and our salvation.

Experiences in the EU have been that skilled immigrants bring buoyancy and innovation to the local economy that then creates jobs. We already admit more than 1 million legal immigrants per year, many of whom are highly skilled, so as you point out we already have mechanisms to handle this.

And to your point - why would any of this be any guarantee of legal permanent residence status? Again there are mechanisms in place for companies to sponsor valued and skilled workers for permanent residence.

But you know this already. These facts do not suit their agenda so they are simply trying to legitimize their cause by frantically throwing any and everything against the wall in the hope that some of it sticks!

[hertamania]

11:45 AM on 12/14/2011

He lost me when he included illigals. More of a waste of our money.

[jonesengr]

11:30 AM on 12/14/2011

It all starts at the high school level.

[jonesengr]

11:25 AM on 12/14/2011

This is an "And so" article. If 1/2 of all Docterate degrees are issued to out of country residents, so what? I have been told that foreign students get government payments to enter US colleges and get degrees..............Payments from their country............So colleges pursue those dollars as it is cash on the barrell head................A friend who works at a college is sent yearly to other countries to enlist students for her college.................Thats how much money it is worth to the college

[des946]

02:47 PM on 12/14/2011

Yeah, a driving force behind a lot of this is the revenue generation for the universities . . . and a lot of that is government paid tuitions for foreigners. Are we in essence subsidizing part of our foreign competitos at tax payer expense? Should it be that those students who are granted such visas should be required to work in our country for at least ten years or longer? (They would have to give up their travel pass ports for that period. That would just be "the price" of getting such tuitions.) Everyone tries to "game" the systems, huh?

[plebian43]

11:07 AM on 12/14/2011

This nation cannot endure the treasonous intent of these elected tools masquerading as representatives of the people, resign Bennet.

[war029]

10:28 AM on 12/14/2011

Another example of the political fear mongering by our congressional reps..according to the Center for Immigration Studies there are about 10 million Americans that have STEM degrees that are currently not working in those fields...does this sound like a shortage of skilled labor. It would be nice for once that those that are supposed to represent the American people, actually represent the interests of the American people.

[lesdavi89]

09:12 AM on 12/14/2011

This is what happens when our teachers' union graduates dumber students year after year.

[jonesengr]

11:27 AM on 12/14/2011

I was told once by a corporate head hunter that there are colleges he will not recruit from as the graduates can not properly read and write.

[jufrgs]

09:10 AM on 12/14/2011

Then who will clean their toilets, and be nanny's to their children, pick the gardens, and lay their brick for $2.00 an hour? As long as they are working like slaves and not multiplying they are loved, but when they demand better pay and living conditions send them back. This is a human rights thing that needs to be addressed.

[hertamania]

11:47 AM on 12/14/2011

I don't care, if they are here illigally we get to abuse them. They can always leave if it is so bad. BTW the guys in front of Home Depot want a lot more than $2 an hour so you are making stuff up as you go along.

[pacemsemper]

12:36 PM on 12/14/2011

"we get to abuse them" really?!

Can you be intelligent enough to recognize that all humans are intrinsically deemed of the most basic human rights!

Abusing them does not guarantee in any way or form the protection of these fundamental rights.

Any person has dignity whatever the act committed, as gruesome and horrible as it may be, so much more the undocumented which most have not committed horrible offenses except for crossing the border illegally and that is only an act of survival.

I understand that we have a rule of law, and that should be enforced! I agree,

but Human Rights are inherent and cannot be taken away regardless of anything and abusing them will only push for more hate and violence, which is something that appears to me as your agenda!

[geoffpoon]

08:56 AM on 12/14/2011

The world needs garbage men also, but the Mexicans have those jobs.....

[pacemsemper]

12:44 PM on 12/14/2011

"Mexicans" I most certainly cannot agree that all the people with these jobs are mexican. For all I know they could easily be Pakistani, Salvadorean, anything really.

It really bothers me to think that in this day and age where reason should be at its most high, generalizations about groups of people still exist just like the comment you have written.

By the way, the garbage men in my block are white and black men, not mexican.

On another note, many of my friends are mexican, with a college degree from universities in mexico and they've come to do their masters here and some are staying and a few are leaving, but they are well-educated men and women and such generalizations such as yours are futile to them!