U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) met with 15 immigrant entrepreneurs on Tuesday to discuss the growing need for changes in the way the U.S. government deals with the in-flow of highly skilled workers.
Just days after the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service said it has received nearly a quarter million new applications for a maximum allowed 85,000 high-skilled visas, the senator said the time for high-skilled immigration reform is now.
“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,” Hatch, chairman of the Republican High-Tech Task Force and a member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said. “This limitation is forcing American companies to outsource their innovation centers to competitors like Canada. This hurts America. We can do better.”
Hatch predicts that America will face a shortage of more than 220,000 workers with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degrees within the next three years. Even with such a massive shortage, the U.S. Customs Service delays or denies visa applications for thousands of high-skilled, qualified workers after it reaches the cap of approvals for an entire year, within days.
Citing research by the American Enterprise Institute, Hatch said that for each foreign-born worker with a STEM degree who remains in the U.S., an average of more than 2.5 additional U.S. jobs are created.
“We need to unlock this potential and secure our rightful position as the innovation engine of the world,” Hatch said. “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.”
Senator Hatch’s bill would increase the H-1B cap up to 115,000, with the possibility that the cap could rise as high as 195,000, depending on economic conditions.