SIIA sent a letter thanking Senators Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio and Coons today for sponsoring the “Immigration Innovation Act.” High-skilled immigration is a critical component in the broad effort to reform the U.S. immigration system, and this legislation effectively establishes a “must do” list to enable U.S. companies attract and retain the best innovators from around the world. This strong bipartisan leadership on this issue presents an important step forward in the effort to reform U.S. immigration laws.
The U.S. IT industry—and the American economy more broadly—has always benefited from the contributions of the highly-educated, regardless of where they were born. Highly skilled foreign-born innovators, researchers, medical professionals, engineers and entrepreneurs help drive our economy and create quality U.S. jobs. In fact, many globally-leading companies, and major U.S. employers, were founded here in the U.S., at least in part by foreign-born citizens. This prominent list includes the likes of Yahoo!, Google, eBay and Intel.
By increasing the supply of H-1B visas, increasing the allotment of employment-based green cards and enabling foreign students trained at U.S. universities to remain and work in the U.S., the Innovation Act will enable continued U.S. innovation, job creation and economic expansion in a worldwide economy.
SIIA thanks Senators Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio and Coons for their leadership on this very important issue. We look forward to working with them to support enactment of this legislation as part of comprehensive immigration reform this year.
Ken Wasch is President of SIIA. Follow the SIIA Policy team on Twitter at @SIIAPolicy.