Bloomberg
By Kathleen Hunter
May 14, 2013
Senate Judiciary Committee members overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to limit the flow of immigrants to the U.S. offered by a leading opponent of a broad revision of immigration law.
By a vote of 1-17 today, the panel defeated the proposal by Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, who said the broader plan by a bipartisan group of eight senators would prompt a wave of immigration that would harm American workers.
The panel’s Republican members joined Democrats in opposing the proposal. Among them, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and co-author of the bill, said that from immigrants “who today have low skills, will come some of the brightest” individuals in the U.S.
The Judiciary Committee resumed consideration of the immigration measure, which would require improvements in border security, as sought by Republicans, and provide a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., proposed by Democrats.
Sessions’ amendment would have limited to 1.2 million the number of people granted permanent residency each year, while capping at 1 million the annual number of temporary work authorizations.
Committee members also worked on proposals to alter the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers. Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, said companies such as Intel Corp. (INTC), EBay Inc. (EBAY), Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO) and Google Inc. (GOOG) “have benefited from immigrants and talented, foreign creators.”
‘Talented Contributors’
“We need to do more to keep these companies and jobs for American workers in this country,” Leahy said. “Talented contributors from abroad also boost demand for local goods and enrich our communities.”
Congress created the H-1B program in 1990 to help U.S. companies fill job vacancies with skilled foreign workers. The bipartisan Senate bill would raise the annual visa limit under the program to 135,000 from 85,000. It would allow further expansion to 180,000 depending upon economic conditions.
The proposal represents a compromise between high-tech companies that want to hire more foreign workers and labor organizations that insist on language to protect U.S. workers, including a provision requiring companies to advertise jobs before hiring foreign workers.
The Judiciary Committee today may also consider an amendment offered by Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, the panel’s top Republican, that would require greater information-sharing about people who overstay student visas.
Boston Marathon
The proposal was prompted by the April 15 Boston Marathon bombings. Azamat Tazhayakov, a Kazakhstani national who was a friend of one of the bombing suspects and is charged with hindering the investigation, re-entered the U.S. in January on an expired student visa.
Before turning to the high-skilled visa program, senators considered several proposals to alter the plan’s border-security provisions. The panel adopted a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, to shorten the distance drones could monitor on the U.S. side of the border in parts of California.
The committee rejected an amendment proposed by Sessions to require the U.S. to create a biometric visa tracking system, such as fingerprinting or a facial-recognition scan, before undocumented immigrants could become citizens. Opponents said the proposal would require the biometric system sooner than is practical, would be too costly and would delay citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Floor Debate
At the panel’s first session to consider amendments on May 9, senators adopted about two-dozen amendments to the border-security provisions. The committee plans to continue work on the bill May 16. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has said he wants to bring the measure to the floor in June.
Also today, six House Republicans held a news conference to denounce the comprehensive Senate bill.
“It grants amnesty to everybody that’s here” and “destroys the rule of law,” Iowa Representative Steve King told reporters.
Only after the border is “100 percent” secure should Congress consider adjusting the status of the 11 million undocumented immigrants, said Louisiana Representative John Fleming. “We need to tear this thing up and start from the beginning,” he said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, has said his panel will address immigration with a series of individual measures rather than a comprehensive approach. Still, King said he’s concerned that if the Senate passes its bill, “some version” of that measure would get a vote in the House.
“Every Democrat would vote for it and it would only take a couple dozen Republicans” to pass it, King said. “We would be stuck with a very bad bill.”
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