Talking Points to Fight the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act

Oct 4, 2019

Categories Immigration Law Issues Tags: employment-based visa, Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, immigration attorney, immigration lawyer, Louisiana, New Orleans, S.B. 386, work-based immigration, work-based visa

Share this article:

The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act is officially known as S.B. 386, and it is pending passage in the Senate. We have written about the dangers of the act: The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act Is Not That Fair and Fight the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act. It may pass by unanimous consent without a vote or hearing if we don’t rally some opposition to it.

S.B. 386 will change the face of employment-based immigration for at least a decade in a move that is largely a gift to the tech industry, lifting the caps for workers from India and China, which will effectively block employment-based immigration for other industries—including health care and the oil and gas industry, which should concern Louisianans—and force those currently on DACA to leave the country and move to countries they have never lived in for more than a decade if they tried to adjust their status by getting jobs.

We explain in our breakdowns how per country caps and overall immigration caps have created this situation, and that adjusting per country caps as S.B. 386 does without changing overall caps will create one logjam in an effort to fix the ones that affect two of the countries that get the most employment-based visas, China and India.

Call and write your senators and ask for fixes that do no harm. What should you ask them?

That it doesn't count derivatives--family members that follow--against visa quota
That it doesn't count derivatives for prior H-1B holders against visa quota
That it exempts national interest and extraordinary ability from quota
That it creates a quota system that resembles our electoral college, allocating more numbers to countries with higher populations or higher historical immigration rates
That it allots more visa numbers or eliminates visa quotas entirely

The bill should also protect those applications already in process by extending no harm provisions to all applications with prevailing wage requests, Labor Certification, or I-140 petition filed before April 1, 2020 to allow cases in process to be filed and protected.

The dramatic stories of asylum seekers and refugees draws our attention, but many immigrants come to America through employment-based immigration, so this bill would drastically change the way legal immigration works in America. Please let senators know that you oppose this bill as written and how they could make it better.

Here is the contact information for the Senate Judiciary Committee members. Those asterisked names are on the Immigration subcommittee.

Lindsay Graham* SC R https://www.lgraham.senate.gov... (202) 224-5972

Dianne Feinstein* CA D www.feinstein.senate.gov/publi... (202) 224-3841

Chuck Grassley* IA R www.grassley.senate.gov/contac... (202) 224-3744

Patrick Leahy* VT D www.leahy.senate.gov/contact/ (202) 224-4242

John Cornyn TX R www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact (202) 224-2934

Dick Durbin* IL D www.durbin.senate.gov/contact/ (202) 224-2152

Micheal Lee* UT R www.lee.senate.gov/public/inde... (202) 224-5444

Sheldon Whitehouse RI D www.whitehouse.senate.gov/cont... (202) 224-2921

Ted Cruz* TX R (202) 224 5922 www.cruz.senate.gov

Amy Klobuchar* MN D www.klobuchar.senate.gov/publi... (202) 224-3244

Ben Sasse NE R www.sasse.senate.gov/public/in... (202) 224-4224