Executive Order on High-Skilled Immigration No Substitute for Legislation, Tech Groups Say

CEA hails the "minor incremental changes" trumpeted at the White House to address high-skilled labor immigration reform, said Veronica O'Connell, CEA vice president-government and political affairs, in an interview, echoing CEA’s prepared statement. "But they’re not very broad changes and they do not go very far" in resolving the problem, O’Connell said. "For there to be any comprehensive reform" on immigration policies for the high-skilled, "Congress is the only one that can do that."

CEA’s longstanding policy supports increasing the yearly cap -- currently 85,000 -- on the number of H-1B visas available for high-skilled foreign workers to address the current high-skilled labor shortage, O’Connell said. "We support raising the cap to a specific level, but we also have supported various past legislative proposals that raised the cap to certain numbers but also has allowed a rolling of that cap," she said. "I think the challenge is the cap was put in over 10 years ago, and the cap is not meeting up with the demand." Bottom line, the president’s executive action appears to do "nothing" to address the issue of H-1B visa caps, she said.

Pending study of actual details that still hadn't been released well into Friday afternoon, O’Connell declined to comment on how far she thinks the president’s actions will go to address two other key planks of CEA’s platform on high-skilled immigration reform. CEA has long advocated that foreign-born, U.S.-educated immigrants should be allowed to remain in America upon graduation with a science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) graduate degree. CEA also has said visas should be granted more readily and without burdensome rules to foreign-born entrepreneurs who want to start businesses in the U.S., provided they raise sufficient capital and hire American workers.

A vaguely worded White House fact sheet released Thursday said the executive order will provide "portable work authorization" for high-skilled workers awaiting "lawful permanent resident" (LPR) status and their spouses. "Under the current system, employees with approved LPR applications often wait many years for their visa to become available," the fact sheet said. The Department of Homeland Security "will make regulatory changes to allow these workers to move or change jobs more easily. DHS is finalizing new rules to give certain H-1B spouses employment authorization as long as the H-1B spouse has an approved LPR application," the fact sheet said.

The executive order also will enhance "options for foreign entrepreneurs," the fact sheet said. "DHS will expand immigration options for foreign entrepreneurs who meet certain criteria for creating jobs, attracting investment, and generating revenue in the U.S., to ensure that our system encourages them to grow our economy. The criteria will include income thresholds so that these individuals are not eligible for certain public benefits like welfare or tax credits under the Affordable Care Act."

The order also will strengthen and extend "on-the-job training for STEM graduates of U.S universities," the fact sheet said. "To strengthen educational experiences of foreign students" working toward STEM degrees at U.S. universities, "DHS will propose changes to expand and extend the use of the existing Optional Practical Training (OPT) program and require stronger ties between OPT students and their colleges and universities following graduation," it said.

Some Obama critics have blasted the executive order as destroying any chance of a Republican-controlled Congress working cooperatively with the White House on comprehensive immigration reform next year. But CEA remains "completely optimistic" a bill will emerge from the new Congress that breaks out high-skilled immigration reform from the more contentious immigration issues, O’Connell said. She based that optimism, she said, on discussions CEA has had on the Hill and from statements that have emerged from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and from House Republicans "that they are committed to working on the high-skilled piece. ... It’s one of those issues that is pretty bipartisan."

Other tech groups seemed to agree the executive order will do little to address what’s needed in high-skilled immigration reform. TechNet estimates that companies’ inability to hire high-skilled workers due to a lack of visas costs the country half a million jobs a year, said CEO Linda Moore in a statement. "Our dysfunctional system means that every day American universities train the world’s great minds, even as the government forces them to return to their home countries to compete against American firms," Moore said.

The president deserves credit "for rejecting this deteriorating status quo by announcing some targeted relief to high-skilled workers and their spouses, and for setting a timeline for considering additional changes to how the legal system treats high-skilled workers," Moore said. But the "limited nature" of Obama’s announcement as it pertains to high-skilled workers "makes it clear that sustainable reform requires Congressional action," she said. "There is no substitute for raising the H-1B cap and increasing the number of green cards available for employment-based immigration," she said. "TechNet urges Congress and the White House not to abandon the reform effort and work together in the next session to enact comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform. America’s competitiveness is at stake."

Brian Toohey, Semiconductor Industry Association CEO, agreed that "America’s broken high-skilled immigration system has been an obstacle to U.S. innovation, job creation and economic growth," he said Friday in a blog post. SIA has long advocated for increasing the number of green cards available to STEM graduates and expanding the H-1B visa program, Toohey said. "Unfortunately, the divisive politics of the broader immigration debate have trumped good policy, and American businesses have suffered as a result."

As SIA sees it, "allowing top minds from abroad to fill open jobs in the U.S. is critical to America’s strength and technology leadership, as well as the U.S. semiconductor industry," Toohey said. "Every highly educated immigrant who stays and works in the U.S. creates nearly three additional American jobs, according to a recent study, and many of America’s most innovative companies -- including several SIA members -- were founded and led by immigrants."

Toohey praised the high-skilled immigration initiatives announced by Obama as "a small step in the right direction," but said "these actions alone fall short of solving the problem." SIA thinks the "best and most effective path forward is for Congress to develop a legislative fix that can be signed into law," he said. SIA "strongly urges" the new Congress to work with the White House "early in 2015 to enact meaningful immigration reform legislation," he said. "Doing so will boost U.S. competitiveness, spur innovation and grow our economy."