November 28, 2007

Dear Member of Congress:

On behalf of Compete America, we write to urge Congress to take action this year on highly-skilled immigration reform.  As a coalition representing corporations, trade associations, and educators, we believe immediate reform to our broken H-1B visa and employment-based green card systems is essential to maintaining America’s competitive edge in the 21st century.

As you may recall, in April of this year over 133,000 H-1B visa applications were submitted to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for only 65,000 available slots for fiscal year 2008.  This occurred within hours on the very first day applications could be received.  Highly-educated foreign individuals who did not receive a visa number were left to pin their hopes on a subsequent lottery process.  Of equal, if not greater, concern is our outdated employment-based (EB) green card system – a system that lacks an adequate number of green cards to support demand and faces a significant backlog of pending applications.  Individuals are often forced to wait more than five years or more for an EB green card, causing considerable personal and professional uncertainty.   

This is no way to attract the world’s best and brightest to the United States, and our foreign competitors understand this.  The European Union (EU) recently announced the introduction of the “Blue Card,” a temporary work visa for highly educated foreign professionals.  The new “Blue Card” will allow all highly educated individuals to apply for a two-year visa, will be targeted to recruit foreign-born graduates of leading U.S. universities and colleges, and will offer a streamlined 1-3 month application process.  The “Blue Card” sends a clear message to those languishing within the U.S. visa system – EU nations value your innovative and entrepreneurial minds and want you to live, work and contribute economically to their countries.  Regrettably, the United States is sending the opposite message.   

At a time when other nations are aggressively taking steps to improve their own competitive position, the United States is failing to do so by sustaining a highly-skilled visa system that turns away future innovators.  While we believe it is fundamental to the United States’ innovation and economic leadership to continue providing world-class education and job training for U.S. workers, we also recognize that foreign professionals play an important role in maintaining our economic preeminence.  We should not take our position as the world’s innovation leader for granted, and our visa system should better reflect the realities of today’s global environment.

We recognize the calendar is short and there are many important public policy issues requiring legislative action by the Congress before the end of the year.  Despite these constraints, we believe there are still numerous opportunities for action on highly-skilled immigration reform, and we respectfully urge you to keep this issue at the top of your list. 

Sincerely,

David Castagnetti

Compete America

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