Hatch Meets with Immigrant Entrepreneurs to Discuss High-Skilled Immigration Reform
Washington, D.C.— Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Republican High-Tech Task Force, and member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, met with 15 immigrant entrepreneurs to discuss the urgent need for high-skilled immigration reform, just a week after U.S. Customs and Immigration Services announced that they had received 233,000 applications for just 85,000 high skilled visas.
Hatch said, “The current cap is preventing American companies from hiring tens of thousands of high-skilled workers needed to grow businesses, develop technologies, and compete in today’s economy. This limitation is forcing American companies to outsource their innovation centers to competitors like Canada. This hurts America. We can do better.”
The full text of Senator Hatch’s remarks are below:
Thank you, everyone, for being here today.
We’re holding this press conference to discuss a real problem America faces. It impacts our competitiveness. It impacts our ability to maintain a strong economy that offers opportunity to everyone.
The problem is the shortage of high-skilled labor here in the United States.
America will face a shortage of more than 220,000 workers with science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees by 2018.
How can that be? Our country trains and educates some of the greatest minds in the world. How do we lose the talent to our competitors?
Here’s how:
US Customs and Immigration Services recently began accepting applications for high-skilled visas for 2016. They reached the cap within five days.
They received a total of 233,000 applications for only 85,000 high skilled visas.
The current cap is preventing American companies from hiring tens of thousands of high-skilled workers needed to grow businesses, develop technologies, and compete in today’s economy.
This limitation is forcing American companies to outsource their innovation centers to competitors like Canada.
I want to be clear: American companies have to look beyond our borders because we make it too difficult for them to be innovative, and it’s only because we don’t allow them to hire the high skilled labor they need to be competitive.
This hurts America. We can do better.
The American Enterprise Institute has confirmed that each foreign-born worker with a STEM degree who remains in the United States creates an average of more than 2.5 additional American jobs.
We need to unlock this potential and secure our rightful position as the innovation engine of the world.
That’s why I’ve offered my I-Squared bill, which addresses the immediate need to provide American employers with greater access to high-skilled workers.
The bill will increase the H-1B cap to 115,000, with the possibility of the cap rising as high as 195,000 depending on economic conditions.
The I-Squared Act also removes the limit on H-1B visas for advanced STEM degree holders, recaptures unused green cards, and allows spouses of H-1B visa holders to work.
Unfortunately, I have to head to a hearing, so I’ll have to turn this over to Madhav Krishna (pronounced MOD-OF KRISH-NUH), the exact kind of entrepreneur we should be welcoming into the United States.
For more information on the Immigration Innovation (I-Squared) Act, please visit our website.
