Problems with immigration bills

Problems with immigration bills

While I fully support the overhaul of our immigration laws, and applaud efforts to simplify legal procedures to encourage legal immigration and discourage illegal one, I have concerns and strong disagreements with the latest bills in the Congress. Specifically, I mean H. R. 213 (Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2015), S. 153 (Immigration Innovation ("I-Squared") Act of 2015), and S. 181 (Startup Act).

My main disagreement with these bills is the elimination of Per-Country limits on EB employment-based immigrant visas (EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3).

As someone who is a legal immigrant, who knows many legal immigrants, and who knows first hand about all the challenges faced by immigrants in the U.S., I can unequivocally state that eliminating per-country limits is a very bad idea. Such elimination will favor very large countries of origin, while reduce or even eliminate opportunities for highly-qualified high-tech immigrants in smaller countries of Europe and former Soviet Union.

Legal immigration requires a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy, which means a lot of fees and money for facilitators, such as immigration attorneys, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups. Potential immigrants from larger countries of origin have a whole conveyor of people, organizations and services that are geared toward simplifying and accelerating their immigrants getting the EB visas. Meanwhile, smaller nations are at a clear disadvantage, lacking the same opportunities. That would deal a blow to diversity of the immigration pool - one of the core intents of the decades-long U.S. immigration laws - while solidifying the stranglehold of a few groups and organizations over high-tech immigrants and immigration process.

This is why I am opposed to such provisions in H.R. 213, S. 153 and S. 181.

Selma Deniz

Winfield