Fight Stealth Foreign Worker/Immigration Increase - Take Act Now!

Calls/Faxes Needed Immediately to Fight Stealth Foreign Worker/Immigration Increase

Your urgent action is needed to flood the Senate with phone calls and faxes voicing strong opposition to a stealth effort underway to balance the budget on the backs of American workers by increasing foreign workers and employment-based immigration.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday passed a measure as part of a budget reconciliation process intended to reduce federal spending by $300 million that sells hundreds of thousands of high-skilled American jobs over the next several years to businesses who will be allowed to import foreign workers.

The measure, proposed by Senators Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), dramatically increases employment-based immigration and H-1B "high-tech" visas for foreign workers in exchange for revenue created by increased fees on H-1B and L-1 visas. (See below for further details.)

Please take the following actions right away:

1.
Click here to send a free fax to your Senators urging them to reject this section of the budget reconciliation package. https://secure2.convio.net/fair/site/Ad ... mgf3.app6a
2.
Follow your faxes up with phone calls reiterating your strong opposition to this outrageous proposal. Call the Captiol Switchboard (202-224-3121) and ask to be connected or find your Senator's direct office number here on our web site.
3.
Specifically insist that these unacceptable provisions be removed from the bill either by the Budget Committee or by the full Senate if necessary.
4.
Should these provisions be included in the reconciliation, urge your Senators to oppose the bill in its entirety.

Legislative Details:

The committee approved the measure 14-2 after efforts by FAIR allies to kill the proposal failed. Not surprising, the Chamber of Commerce and the business community are behind this new expansion of guestworkers and are expected to push for an even greater expansion when the legislation moves to the floor of the Senate.

The original Specter/Kennedy proposal sought to increase H-1B visas by up to 60,000 visas per year. Fortunately, the committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) reducing that number to 30,000 visas per year.

The final package would:

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Vastly increase employment-based immigration by recapturing unused employment-based visas from prior years for immediate allocations of up to 90,000/year.
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Exempt spouses and minor children from counting against the annual cap on employment-based immigrant visas. (This could result in an annual increase of hundreds of thousands of employment-based immigrant visas.)
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Allow those in the country with pending application to adjust their status before an immigrant visa is available, without regard to visa limitations.
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Recapture unused H-1B visas going back to 1991 in order to make available 30,000 new H-1B visas per year. This would effectively raise the 65,000 to 95,000 for at least 10 years, not counting the 20,000 exemptions approved in last year's omnibus spending bill.
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Impose a new $500 fee on employment-based immigrant visa petitions.
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Impose a new $500 fee on recaptured H-1B visa petitions (the additional 30,000 visas over the original 65,000 limit).
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Impose a new $750 fee on L-1 visas.

The Senate Budget Committee is scheduled to markup the budget reconciliation package this Wednesday, with a full Senate floor vote soon to follow, probably next week. Once approved by the Senate, a House/Senate conference will be held to iron out differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget reconciliation package. The House version is far superior. It contains no foreign worker or employment based immigration expansions. The House version of the legislation simply raises revenue by increasing fees on L-1 visas by $1,500.

Our goal is to get the Senate to strip this language from the budget reconciliation. If the Senate passes the measure, we must press the House to refuse including it in the House/Senate conference bill.