America's national politicians are usually above blatant vote-bank focused identity politics. That might not apply to Senator Scott Brown (R-MA).
Mr. Brown is facing a tough election this fall. Many voters in Massachusetts are of Irish descent. So, Mr. Brown is eager to pass a bill (S.2005, IRE Act) that will annually provide a quota of 10,500 E-3 employment visas for citizens of Ireland.
Currently, the E-3 visa is only available (many argue unfairly) to Australians. An E-3 visa is generally considered a generous employment visa as spouses of visa holders are permitted to work and the visa can be perpetually renewed every two years.
It is hard to see how Mr. Brown's latest E-3 visa will help America. America should be attracting the best immigrants from around the world, not appeasing Mr. Brown's voters. Here are some facts: the Republic of Ireland's population is less than 5 million. 10,500 visas represent ~0.2% of the total Irish population (and this does not include dependents who would additionally obtain related visas)! In contrast, India and China are home to more than 2.5 billion people, with huge numbers of highly skilled workers, but only get a part of the 65,000 to 120,000 employment visas issued in a year for the rest of the world. Any individual who can analytically and mathematically justify Mr. Brown's argument, that this E-3 visa is a good thing for America, is likely worthy of a Fields Medal and some serious scrutiny.
This story gets worse. In jostling currently underway among senators, it is widely believed that this E-3 visa provision is being linked to the passage of the House Resolution (HR) 3012, Fairness for Highly Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011. HR 3012 seeks to make the green card system of the US fairer by eliminating country quotas to make it first-come first-serve. HR 3012 was passed nearly unanimously in the House in 2011 with only 3% of the members opposing it and was endorsed in essence by the White House in its recent release (See Section 3). It is still awaiting passage in the Senate.
It is ironic that the fate of a fairness-enhancing bill is linked to a pork barrel visa bill which is utterly unfair and self-serving. Further, special visa carve-outs for countries like Ireland and Australia, and the existence of non-population-proportioned green card quotas that HR 3012 seeks to fix, sound woefully like the erstwhile racist immigration policies of Australia (White Australia Policy) and the USA (Immigration Act of 1924) that were dismantled after World War 2.
Mr. Brown won his Massachusetts election on merit, not unfair quotas. In that spirit, he should let foreigners come to the US on their merit, not unfair quotas. He should also try and win his upcoming election on merit, not unfair quotas.
Dinkar has previously written about highly skilled immigration. Click here to read other articles by Dinkar.
Follow Dinkar Jain on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DinkarJain
Indian body shop is the reason for the big corporations don't want to hire full time employee. This has become a fact in the industry. There has been cases where Indian body shops file H1b as employee and those employee has never came to US and file for GC.
Plus - What can they do? I am into IT, I am scared to take a full time job with any company, because, GC process takes 5-7 years, generally started in the second year with the company, post 2008 almost no company in america can be safe for a long term commitment, (they may fail too) if they dont fail - what are the chances they will not oursource and let you go ? and if you are let go, in 10 days you are on the road - the road to going back , leaving your home, car, stuff and friends here (not that there is anything wrong with it, but Uncool to do that without plannig, especially if you have kids and you have to pull them out mid year)
Those complaining about long waits in line are average people (i.e. those in the EB3 category) doing average jobs that average Americans can do in their sleep. There is nothing special about them at all.
Frankly, I am not sympathetic to your long waits. It's not a life and death situation for you if you have to wait. You can always return to your home country if you are not pleased.
HR 3012 is ironically an unfair visa - to the rest of the 193 countries. India and China only make up 54% of all pending applications in EB3, why should they be entitled to 85% of all green-cards in 2012? and 90% in 2013 and 2014? and beginning 2015, as many as they want?
The Indians keep asserting that they're incredibly smart people and therefore deserve no limits. Why should they? Because the rest of the world does not produce smart engineers, innovators, artists, and leaders?
With HR 3012, you can kiss work-place and cultural diversity a looooong good bye. Cheers.
And India and China aren't asking for any visas, let alone 85% or 90%. People born in those countries are merely asking that their place in line be respected. Equal wait for equal abilities.
Seriously, if you want FIFO, then demand to add a clause to the bill that would revoke ALL labour substitutions. And since India has the most applications, it's safe to say Indians have also filed the most labour subs. Those guys jumped the queue. Not me. And hopefully not you either. They are the ones who are holding up your application.
Revoking all labour subs of all pending applications and forcing them to apply for PERM on their own merit (not someone elses' that they purchased) would be a truly fair system. And it would make the wait shorter for you, for me, and all other immigrants from India and the Rest Of the World.
Since Indians love to come up with analogies of waiting in line at Starbucks, or Pizza Hut, would you allow anyone to cut the line there? No? Then revoke all labour subs.
You game?
No clause to revoke labour subs, No HR 3012.
And like I pointed out earlier, if you truly want a FIFO system, demand to add a clause to revoke all labour subs. They jumped the line and should be forced to reapply with fresh PERMS on their own merit.
No labour sub clause, No HR 3012. take it or leave it.
What about the Gypsies, nomadic Indians who invaded Europe 1000 years ago? They lied that are Egyptians noble. After 1000 years continues to begging, stealing, living from social assistance, refuse state authority, civil status papers, education, vaccination and work.
Now Indians come to the U.S. with other lies - lying as HR 3012 is only an "administrative fix" how solve backlog for next 3 years, but fail to mention that HR 3012 means to steal visas from Rest of The World ROW and move backlog in other ROW; lie about 70 years waiting time in Indian ROW; trying to fool Americans and force Congress to give them 85% of green cards.
I never seen an Indian to hard work in the U.S. (in construction fields for example) or in war against terrorism with U.S. Army and many other nations. Instead, I always saw the Indians looking for easier jobs in U.S. and crying for special treatment in immigration field.
"neo674" my family are in EB3 because of company policy, not because we are not eligible for EB2. For us HR3012 means rules changed in the middle of the game. The best solution is recapture of visas, not to cut me in line. I have two university degrees in STEM (7 years of study), postgraduate courses and over 10 years experience as an employee, employer and investor. Also, I speak 4 languages​​.
My husband grandfather was US citizen 100 years ago. We have relatives born in the U.S. Many Irish have relatives in the U.S. in the last 400 years. So, don't tell me about first come, first serve! My husband graduated a university (six years degree); over than 15 y of experience; a postgraduate diploma from U.S. We don't have the same skills with EB 3 India; why agree with HR 3012 bill? This law give me "right" to wait after 250K of gasoline sellers and pizza makers from India?!?
Europeans go somewhere else if wait time for green card is ridiculous; Indians are not going anywhere, no matter how long they expected in line. This is the difference. Congress should pass a immigration law in the U.S. economy interest, not in the interest of Indian, Irish or other nations.
An applicant family is not counted against H1b quota.
Why is the same applicant's family counted against the green card quota ?
Not counting the family members of an employer sponsored applicant makes sense.
It is prudent to change laws that are unfair. That is why African Americans and Women got voting rights. You have to right the wrong!
Yes to 3012. No to Brown's pork barrel voter carrot!
When there is a chance of suppressing the minority by the majorities a CAP is mandatory to protect the minorities eaten by the majorities. In green card world Indian IT firms has become majority and gobbling up the rest of the world. When the employment based permanent residency was introduce this was the reason to put a limit on a country so that they can't abuse the system.
I guess you are crying about losing a privilege that the rest of the world enjoyed because of unfair quotas...