AMERICA COMPETES ACT--Continued -- (Senate - April 24, 2007)
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Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, as I told the distinguished Senator from New Mexico and the distinguished Senator from Tennessee, it is my intention to withdraw this amendment following my remarks. But I believe it is important, when we are talking about America's competitiveness, to talk about people with some of the very most desirable skills and education and how it is that we might attract them to live and work and create jobs here in America.
First, I express my gratitude to both Senator Bingaman and Senator Alexander for their leadership on this issue. It is not often enough that we have an opportunity to work on a bipartisan basis on something that is so right and so good and so meritorious as this. It feels good. I think we ought to do it more often.
I do wish to talk about this amendment which is called the Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership Act amendment, otherwise known as the SKIL bill. This was a component of the comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year. Of course, that did not go anywhere. We are back again. I assure my colleagues that we will be coming back time and time again until we get this matter voted on.
In the past 2 years, there has been much focus by Congress and the administration on restoring America's competitive edge. While some have viewed the SKIL bill, as it is called, as an immigration issue, I believe it should be considered as a competitiveness issue, not just an immigration one. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences included similar recommendations in its study ``Rising Above the Gathering Storm.'' This very report was the original, the genesis of America COMPETES and several other bills introduced in the 109th Congress. That report recommended to Congress that it should ``continue to improve visa processing for international students and scholars to provide less complex procedures and continue to make improvements on such issues as visa categories and duration, travel for scientific meetings, the technology-alert list, reciprocity agreements, and changes in status.'' The report also recommended that Congress should ``institute a new skills-based, preferential immigration option. Doctoral-level education in science and engineering skills would substantially raise an applicant's chances and priority in obtaining U.S. citizenship'' under this particular legislation.
The United States has always been blessed by recruiting the best and the brightest from all around the world, whether they be scholars, scientists, or researchers. As we all know, the United States is now engaged, though, in a global competition for these very same scientists, scholars, and researchers.
In this global economy, there are only three ways for us to retain the most brilliant workforce in the world: No. 1, we can grow our own talent, which is the intent of the bill we are debating right now; No. 2, we can continue to recruit the top students from around the world from other nations; or, No. 3, we can watch our companies move their workforce and jobs to other countries in order to find that talented workforce and to remain competitive. I don't know if there are any other choices than those--grow our own talent, import the best talent, or see our jobs go overseas. Those are the choices we have. The countries that can attract and retain the best and the brightest will obviously have an advantage over other countries in this global competition.
As we have heard, the United States does not produce enough engineers. Over half of master's and Ph.D. degrees in the United States go to foreign students each year, foreign students who study in the United States.
China graduates four times as many engineers as we do, and within a few years approximately 90 percent of all scientists and engineers in the world will be in Asia.
Foreign students help us fill the gap right now--a gap we are going to try to make up through growing more of our own talent right here through the great provisions of this legislation--but then our immigration policy, as currently constituted, forces these best and brightest students, these foreign students, to return home because there are no high-tech visas.
Our immigration policy has not adapted to the changing international environment or this global competition. Only 65,000 visas are issued each year to this category of the best and the brightest. For the past few years, the cap has been reached before the fiscal year even begins. But this year, on April 1, 2007, there was a loud outcry for immediate relief in our highly skilled immigration policies because that was the day the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced the 2008 cap for H-1B visas was met. That is right, because the United States has already met the cap for H-1B visas, foreign students graduating from our universities this spring are virtually shut out of the U.S. job market. We hit that cap on the very day the opportunity for filing for those types of visas was presented.
This situation is unprecedented. What it means is employers cannot hire highly educated workers for up to 1 year, until the next allotment of visas becomes available. With global competition, of course, these workers have a lot of other options as to where to go. They can go to England. They can go to France. They can go to India. They can go to China. In short, they can go to our global competitors and work there and take the jobs that could be created here in America with them.
This SKIL bill has important protections for American workers, and I hope my colleagues will listen to this because there is, frankly, a lot of misconception about foreign students and foreign workers coming here and taking American jobs at a lower wage. In fact, high-tech visas generate fees to pay for U.S. worker training programs. Every time an employer sponsors a foreign worker, that employer must contribute to a fund to train U.S. workers. Of course, under our law, they cannot be hired to come in and work at a lower wage than would have to be paid to a comparable U.S. worker. Immigrant professionals actually create jobs here in the United States. The founder of Intel is a prime example. He was an immigrant from Hungary and has created hundreds of thousands of jobs at his company here in America.
So sound policy will start by retaining foreign students who are educated here in the United States, particularly in the most sought after areas of math, science, and engineering.
We should exempt from the annual visa limit any foreign student who graduates from a U.S. university with a master's degree or a Ph.D. degree in these essential fields. It is simply a matter of economic survival and competition for the United States. Also, insourcing talented workers, as I pointed out, is preferable to outsourcing those jobs and the associated economic activity that goes with it to other countries. We should make it easier for those who do comply with our immigration laws to travel in and out of our country as well. We must also attract the best and brightest who are working in other countries to come here and do their work in the United States so those jobs can stay here.
In the long run, we have to improve our schools and encourage more U.S. students to study engineering and mathematics, and the America COMPETES Act, as it is currently written, does just that. But in the short term, we have to adapt our immigration policy so when those U.S. students are educated in engineering fields, there will be jobs right here in the United States for them to perform. Then we can reap the benefits of the most outstanding college and university education in the world, which students travel from all around the world in order to be able to obtain, and then that they not have to go home after they graduate from college if they are in the essential fields of math, science, and engineering.
If we do not act, America's technology industry, its health care industry, higher education, research institutions, financial services industries will be harmed and our economy will suffer. The intersection of our immigration policy and our country's ability to compete for global talent is critical, and we cannot wait years to address this issue. It is imperative we address it as soon as possible.
AMENDMENT NO. 902, WITHDRAWN
My only regret is we are unable to do so on this bill because it belongs on this bill. But I understand the practical ramifications of continuing to insist upon a vote on this particular amendment at this time. So it is with some regret that I ask unanimous consent to withdraw my amendment but urge my colleagues to continue to work to support H-1B visa reform and see that the SKIL bill, as currently presented as an amendment to this bill, is ultimately enacted into law because, frankly, it is in the best interest of the United States and American jobs right here at home.
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