PLEASE ACT TODAY!! House vote on HR4241 affects visa retrogression outcome
The House has started debating over Balancing today and tomorrow. It is important to act now to gain support from House of the Representatives because just having Senate's support does not mean it will solve the visa retrogression problem because House Rep 4241 (H.R. 4241) bill does not currently have any section for recapturing the number for EB visas or H1B visas. Since only Senate Bill 1932 (S. 1932) has them, conference committee will be held to reconciled the difference on these two bills.
If an amendment is not made to H.R.4241., it is hard to say whether people on the committee from the 2 houses will be both in favor of helping to solve the visa retrogression problem and the recapturing number from the Senate bill might not even make it.
If somebody in the house can bring up the subject to help amend the H.R. 4241 - Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 to add Section 8001 and 8002 of the Senate bill to Section 5100 to the House bill, H.R. 4241. Then, there is hope that this will get signed and enacted.
Information on house schedule and the bill can be found at
http://www.majoritywhip.gov/whipnoti...ate=11/14/2005
Please contact House Representative TODAY to express support for amending the House Bill to include Senate bill proposed immigration changes because voting will likely take place between today and tomorrow (or Friday evening depending on how fast they are going over).
Below is the letter which I wrote to my congressman. Please take a look and and send an email TODAY (ask your employers as well) to the House Representative(s) to voice your support.
You can go to the following website directly to submit the message
from the following link.
http://www3.capwiz.com/c-span/issues/bills/?
billtype=H.R.&billnumb=4241&congress=109
If the site is busy or not available, please go to
http://www.house.gov/ and search by zip code to bring up the
information for the Congressional delegate(s) in your district and
compose the email from his/her website.
Thanks!! --ed
===================================
Honorable Congressman <Name>:
As Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security
mentioned a while ago
(
http://www.competeamerica.org/econom...te/index.html),
"As we secure America from terrorists, we do not
want to risk losing the next Albert Einstein… We would be
a far poorer nation in many, many ways." The quote
pertains not only to recruit/retain many smart/skillful
around the world and protect US technologies against
international competitors, but also keep US jobs
intact by slowing down the outsourcing effort while reducing the
nation's deficit up to $150,000,000.00 as stated in Senate bill, S.
1932.
Many large corporations have already outsourced
heavily to other countries to take advantage of cheaper costs of
labor and material. While this helps with improving
these countries living standards in a positive way,
the outsourcing negatively affects many US industries,
including traditional manufacturing. Now, the trend indicates that
increasing mid-sized and smaller Corporate American companies are
outsourcing core corporate areas such as accounting and financing
operations to offshore countries. New York Times says even New
York City has outsourced the tickets such as parking fines that
people need to pay to an Alfrican country
(
http://www.busyinternet.com/aboutus/...2_02/In New%
20York%20Tickets,%20Ghana%20Sees%20Orderly%20City. htm)
In retrospect, there is little that government can do to reverse
the outsourcing effort and the severe EB-based retrogression has
further forced away lots of bright minds from other countries.
EB-3 category, in particular, gets hit the most and there is
currently no quota for all countries for the rest of the fiscal
year, which starts this October and ends around next Sept.
The retrogression in the EB-3 category immediately
impacts many who are in the last stages
of the permanent resident process. They are not able to file for I-
485 to adjust their status to residents because the priority date is
not current. Depending on the countries affected, the
retrogression could be as far back as 01JAN99 to
15MAR01 (worldwide). This also affects many professionals with
graduate degree who have filed or soon will be filing under this
category as well. What this means is that while foreign workers who
are lawfully presented in the US and have been paying
taxes as Americans do now got stuck in the last stage of
immigration process due to a shortage of the visa numbers.
The temporary solution is to recapture the EB numbers from
the prior years and this does not mean increasing the quota on a
permenant basis. If S. 1932 is enacted into law, the following jobs
will remain in the U.S., albeit by the foreign
workers, contributing to the US companies,
revenues, and competitive advantage over the foreign
businesses by participating in the consumer and investment
market while contributing to the US Federal/State tax and Social
Security systems.
o If the unused H-1B numbers of 300,000 are not
recaptured and used, the U.S. businesses will have
to outsource 300,000 jobs to foreign countries.
o If 90,000 unused Employment Based immigrant visa
quota numbers are not recaptured and used, these
jobs will also be outsourced to foreign countries.
Could you please amend the H.R. 4241 to add Section
8001 and 8002 of the Senate bill to Section 5100 of
the House bill, H.R. 4241, which could potentially
reduce the nation's deficit up to $150,000,000.00.
Your consideration is very much appreciated!!
Sincerely yours,
