Specter/Frist Bill problem for India & China - First report from OH law firm

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When it comes to the reform of legal immigration, particularly the employment-based immigration, there appears to be no noticeable battle among different political forces. Indeed the Frist bill and the Specter bill agree each other in almost every detail in the direction of the reform. However, the Chinese and Indian immigrant communities are currently battling with these bills over the provision that restricts use of the per country immigrant visa numbers for fear that such bill will not be able to relieve current employment-based visa number retrogressions for India and China regardless of increase of the overall employment-based immigrant visa quota, recapture of unused immigrant visa numbers, and other provisions that exempt several employment-based immigration related groups from the annual numerical limitation, including family members and certain advanced degree holders. It is our view that the direction of the employment-based immigration system reform should focus on removing the clogs to the pipeline that supplies the needed foreign workers at both high-end and low-end. The reality is that these foreign workers are supplied primarily by certain countries. The statistics reflect that most of the high-end professional workers come from India and China. Considering the fact that it is the sense of the Congress and the nation that this country needs continuing in-flow of foreign brains as reflected in the special provisions relating to the advanced degree foreign worker immigration, the per country limit in the employment-based immigration quota system will work against the achievement of these primary policy goals since it will create another clog to the supply of foreign brains from the primary sources of these brains. It is proposed that the Specter bill is amended to remove the per country limit and the Senate passes the comprehensive immigration reform bill without imposing per country limit in the visa number allocations. In formulating the nation's policy, the Congress cannot contract itself in the same legislation.