Kevin McCarthy Claims Democrats’ Visa Program Benefits China at America’s Expense

Jose Nino | Feb 16, 2022



The Republican Party establishment seems to be changing its tune on mass migration. At least, it seems that way based on recent statements by GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

On February 2, 2022 McCarthy declared that a Democrat bill ostensibly designed to strengthen competition against Chinese manufacturing and technology sectors actually gives China the upper-hand.

Neil Munro of Breitbart News, observed that McCarthy went on the House floor to expose visa provisions in the bill in question that would incentivize American companies and universities to hire and train Chinese graduates instead of American graduates.
McCarthy stated:

They call it the American Competes Act. But make no mistake. It’s a bill that concedes to China. The American Concedes Act is Democrats desperate answer to their string of self-created crisis. While it contains some provisions supported by Republicans. Speaker Pelosi is holding these good ideas hostage by using this 3,000 page bill as a vehicle for the party’s far left agenda. Almost every page of Democrats concede Act has a provision that helps China but hurts America.

Now here are just a few excerpts. On page 1,689, it provides a new unlimited green card program for the Chinese Communist Party to exploit.

Munro noted that the “green card language was touted by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Ca), whose district includes part of Silicon Valley.”

The boosters of such a proposal say it would allow the “best and brightest” foreign graduates to acquire green cards, jobs, and later citizenship if they pursue science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) PhDs in American or foreign universities.

However, Munro pointed out that upon further review, “the fine print of the bill” indicates it would grant green cards to a “wide variety of ordinary foreign graduates, including chemists, doctors, engineers, statisticians, accountants, tax experts, software developers, and computer security experts.”

Lofgren stated:

We must build our domestic STEM workforce and encourage startup companies to establish roots here. While increasing STEM scholarships for U.S. students, the act simultaneously draws the world’s best and brightest STEM doctoral recipients and company founders to the U.S. It ensures that individuals who earn STEM doctoral degrees from top research universities will be eligible for permanent residence. Unlike Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, our laws don’t provide a visa option for company founders to start a new venture and create jobs in the United States. This Act would fix this.

In the bill’s language, there is no limit on the number of foreign migrants who can acquire green cards, which allows them to later obtain jobs in the U.S. In addition, the bill does not establish any minimum standards for the migrants’ skills.

Munro highlighted the alarming levels of foreign contract workers being brought into the U.S.:

Roughly 1.5 million non-immigrant, foreign contract workers — such as H-1B workers — have been imported and hired by CEOs to fill white-collar careers that would otherwise be held by U.S. graduates. The mass inflow of cheap and compliant foreign workers distorts the nation’s professional sector by empowering CEOs, suppressing U.S. salaries, undermining professionalism, slowing innovation, and diverting investment towards the coasts, such as Silicon Valley and New York.

Mark Zuckerberg’s advocacy group FWD.us strongly supports this China bill. In a statement released on February 3, FWD.us stated, “According to FWD.us estimates, 100,000 international student graduates of U.S. colleges and universities each year would like to stay and work permanently in the U.S.”

Munro highlighted that the “100,000 number is roughly one-eighth of all Americans who graduate each year from four-year colleges with degrees in healthcare, business, science, biology, software, math, or engineering.“

The American Action Forum, which has connections to investors and GOP donors, also supports the China bill’s liberal green card program: “These are desirable changes. Greater immigration raises the growth rate of the employed population, leading to more [-economic] output and income,” the group declared in a statement.

The bill’s visa provisions would effectively allow for an “unlimited inflow of Chinese, Indian and other foreigners into U.S. nuclear engineering careers”, per Munro’s report. The inflow coming from the first group is disconcerting due to how Chinese nationals are linked to espionage cases- both in corporate and military fields.

The fact that Republicans are beginning to question the merits of legal immigration is a positive development. This would have been unheard of during the Bush era. All told, this change in opinion goes to show how much of an impact former President Donald Trump has had on political discourse with regards to immigration.

If future Republican candidates are serious about tackling immigration, they need to oppose both illegal and legal immigration.

Kevin McCarthy Claims Democrats’ Visa Program Benefits China at America’s Expense - Big League Politics