SENATOR SCOTT’S LOGICAL AMMENDMENT DRAWS IRE FROM LIBERAL MEDIA AND DEMOCRATS

By Antonio Renteria

Senator Mike Lee has introduced S.B. 386 (House version is H.R.1044), the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, to address what is known as the “Green Card Backlog.” The federal government only issues 140,000 employment-based green cards annually. The waitlist is long for approved petitioners. To date, over one million petitioners are on the waitlist with approved applications. This “green card backlog” is expected to reach 2.4 million by 2030.

To make matters worse, statutory per-country caps (currently set at 7 percent), limit the total number of green cards issued to petitioners from any one country. Indians have the largest backlog with 780,579 petitions, making up 75 percent of the total. It is estimated that someone from India entering the backlog today would have to wait for 195 years to get an EB-3 green card.

Senator Lee’s bill is an attempt to fix the backlog by raising the per-country cap for Indians from 7 percent to 15 percent. Sen. Dick Durbin has co-sponsored this bill and agreed to an amendment with Sen. Lee on additional measures. The Lee-Durbin agreement would:

1. Allow immigrants to “early file” for green cards to prevent children of immigrants from “aging out” of green card eligibility so they will not face deportation while they are waiting for a green card.
2. Create a green card set aside for immigrant workers who are unable to “early file” because they are stuck in the backlog overseas.
3. Prohibit a company from hiring additional H-1B workers if the company’s workforce is more than 50 employees and more than 50 per cent temporary workers.

Although the Lee-Durbin agreement has support from tech companies and the Government of India, it has drawn criticism for prioritizing one country’s immigrants over others. We at Poder Latino agree with this assessment. Just because one group of immigrants has filed in larger numbers to immigrate to the United States, does not mean they should be given a superior status to those citizens from other countries who will then have a lessor number of immigrants because of the favor shown to India. This process makes it more difficult for those individuals to be afforded immigrant status to our country. We realize this is a popular stance now that the Democrats have a Vice-Presidential Candidate of Indian decent, but that does give this stance any more credibility.

“I don’t see how favoring one country at that level of immigration acceptance over everyone else contributes to a fair immigration policy,” said Rachel Lopez, Co-Founder of Poder Latino. “There are too many people in other countries who have waited just as long as the people from several different countries, all with skill-sets in their fields which are equally as impressive as those from Indian decent. The proposal is completely whereas it not only puts Indians at a tremendous advantage, it also lessens the opportunity for people from other countries to immigrate to the United States.”

Kudos to Senator Rick Scott who offered an amendment that would include priority for green card applicants from Spanish-speaking countries, as well as those who speak, Portuguese, Haitian, Creole, Cantonese, Taiwanese, Hokkien, or Hakka, in order to give equal consideration to applicants from other countries.  This is the solution that makes the most sense, and as an organization that supports equality among all races, we strongly support Senator Scott’s amendment and commend him for standing firm in the face of a firestorm primarily from the liberal media and Democrats in Congress. Well done, Senator Scott.

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