http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sta...act-2012-04-05Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sta...act-2012-04-05Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
The Irish E-3 issue is still alive according to Irish Central although the article does not seem to reflect any real progress.
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Sco...146793745.html
The comments section is interesting in that it claims Lamar Smith intends to oppose it if it reaches the House. Can other forum members provide a link to substantiate this?
E3 passing house was always an "IF". All what Irish E-3 is doing is slowing down the progress of HR 3012.Quote:
Originally Posted by gs1968
I think HR 3012 is dead now.Quote:
Originally Posted by gcq
Based on what ?Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
Based on the fact that there has been NO movement for the past three months and news has died down over the past two weeks.Quote:
Originally Posted by vizcard
I think we should start pushing for this bill again for next few days. Senate will be back in session from Monday. Start contacting senators from your area (call/write letters/emails/twit/FB/ etc....even talk to house reps after talking to a senator to push for this bill..all we need is few republican senators support.
Since Eb2 I/C has moved back to 2007, use that as a talking point.
Link to Senators : http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm
Thank you
Considering the political climate, priorities (JOBS bill, etc.) and just the manuveuring, I wouldn't say its dead. No news is good news in this regard.Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
I think you're being over-optimistic. If some compromise deal was to be reached, it would have been reached by now. The fact that nobody has been even talking about doesn't bode well.Quote:
Originally Posted by vizcard
I might be optimistic by nature. But given the facts, my opinion is that it is not "dead". It may be on its way there but I don't believe it's dead right NOW.Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
CRS report - Interesting report - don't forget to check page 16 - I am not sure if this will be any help to 3012 or not.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/RL32235.pdf
Interesting report - too bad nothing has happened since when it was published. Was also interesting to see the long history of fruitless attempts at reforming LPR immigration.Quote:
Originally Posted by jackbrown_890
You are not alone. I am with you on this :)Quote:
Originally Posted by vizcard
Not to let this thread die,here is an update
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Hop...148163085.html
Various forum members have felt in the past that if this issue is laid to rest then the 3012 Bill can be tackled stand alone and maybe there might be some movement
I also had another story on my news alert which I did not upload earlier and how recent these items in this story are is unclear but it is dated April 13-
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...s-brian-bolduc
It does appear like Senator Grassley is not going to budge on this one and I am not sure where the momentum/impetus is going to come from to pass the 3012 Bill.
No mention/updates on Senate Floor/log recently
Hope springs eternal
Agenda for the weekend, compose two emails: one for Indian friends/college buddies/family and another for american friends asking them to sign the petition and forward to anyone who supports the bill. I guess its the least that can be done on this front. I feel there are probably a lot of people out there who have gotten their green cards and have no idea that such a bill is being considered. Although I already did send a similar mail before, I am going to target a wider audience this time around.
Does anyone know how do we support organizations like TechNet who are lobbying for the bill? Its pretty clear our Indian friends who owns desi sweatshops will not join for any such effort. I am sure there are right minded Indians out there owning business, or in politics etc. Are there any to mobilize those Indian owned firms who will help support TechNet?Quote:
Originally Posted by randomax
I've been thinking about this. perhaps we can write to pro-immigrant journalists like Tom Friedman or Fareed Zakaria? Fareed is Indian too.Quote:
Originally Posted by idiotic
Oh, and FWIW, I checked ** after ages and earlier this month they claimed that they are still lobbying behind the scenes.
Fareed Zakaria is the son of Rafeeq Zakaria - ex-education minister of Maharashtra. He is a mumbaikar!
On the main topic - I think if you feel passionate about something then do it. People who throw their weight behind an issue - do not do so immediately. They will wait to see whether there is momentum behind it. And when you have momentum - people will come and join you without you asking them to (aka "Ramdev Joining Anna"-style).
So if you feel passionate about something just do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
Content of email that I am thinking of sending. Feel free to suggest changes. I have taken most of the material from manubhais thread on this issue.
I need one or two articles that highlight why this bill makes sense, any suggestions? Thanks.
"Hi All - I don't usually send mass emails but feel this one is worthy of your time. I am writing to you to ask you for your support for H.R. 3012 - Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. The highlights of this bill are as follows:
1. This bill does NOT increase the number of immigrants allowed in the United States.
2. This bill eliminates an archaic provision of the current employment based immigration law that discriminates the amount of time an employment based applicant needs to wait based on his country of birth.
3. This bill will have no impact on the diversity of the immigrant pool (much less the diversity of the population of United States) because it only impacts a small percentage of the total immigrant pool entering United States.
4. This bill is a product of patriotic minds on both sides of the aisle working together to produce small, beneficial results for the US economy. It has thus passed the House of Representatives with a 96% approval - a rare feat in today's times.
It is currently stuck in the Senate because other provisions which actually increase the number of visas available for people from certain countries are being added to the bill. If you support this bill, I strongly urge you to write to your congressman/congresswoman requesting they put their weight behind it:
OpenCongress: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-s1857/
S. 1857 is HR 3012's companion bill in the Senate.
Please click on the link, and then click the "support" button that appears on the right side of your screen. Submit your address/contact information and then create a login. Note that an activation email will be sent to you and until you click on the link in the email, the letter WILL NOT BE SENT. This process should not take more than 5 minutes of your time.
I am attaching a letter at the bottom of this email that can be pasted on the opencongress page. It also gives more detail about what this bill entails. For those interested, the following articles highlight why this bill is needed:
Please forward this to anyone who you think would support this bill. Thanks for your time. "
Don't mention S.1857. It'll confuse the issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomax
Is this for real, only 221 people have supported the bill on opencongress???Quote:
Originally Posted by vizcard
Sent out the email, but removed point 3 from the earlier email.
I'm not surprised. The focus has been HR3012. If that gets killed, then someone will bring up S1857 again.Quote:
Originally Posted by randomax
--------------------Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
"Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it"
Guys, I hope you know what you are doing... HR3012 can only pass without much attention !!... You don't want to attract attention to this bill... even if means that it dies a slow, painful death. It will come up again later. Let behind the scenes lobby do its thing.
Do you realize what will Lou Dobbs and everyone else who are against immigration will do... if this story by Fareed Zakaria catches on?
I urge you guys not to do go to the general media. This story should remain within pro-immigration circles only. It is best for all of us.
Grassley's latest "concern". ( Look in comments section for some funny comments)
Chuck Grassley: Were the Secret Service prostitutes Russian spies?
Just curious, which was the last non-trivial immigration bill passed?
I don't know if it was the last but it was significant - AC21.Quote:
Originally Posted by abcx13
Wow, 12 years ago. It's amazing that Congress is so feckless that they've been unable to fix high-skilled immigration since then - in good economic times and in bad, under Reps and Dems, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by vizcard
A new bill was introduced on 5/15/2012 by U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary’s Immigration, Refugees, and Border Security Subcommittee.
Sen. John Cornyn's Website link for the new bill:
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/...8-c5df1c4313a4
Sen. John Cornyn's Website link for the STAR Act:
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/...8-c5df1c4313a4
STAR Act (PDF):
http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/public/...f-535ae95f39ed
From http://articles.economictimes.indiat...mporary-visas:Quote:
Originally Posted by A_Tech_Softie
That's such a crock of shit. I think the Democrats are actually as bad as the Republicans when it comes to immigration reform. Cherry-picking "certain high-qualified workers" will clearly benefit the nation the most instead of some random DREAMers or the diversity visa recipients. And everyone knows that CIR is NOT going to happen, so nothing happens and the status quo stays as it does with everything else these days. There's more damn Irish in this country than in the whole of Irleand, and yet they are eligible for diversity visas.Quote:
A Senate Democratic aide said Democrats prefer to address the high-tech visa question in the larger context of immigration reform "rather than cherry-pick certain workers."
Nobody is willing to admit it, but this is nothing but racism in another form. It probably doesn't help that Indians/Chinese don't 'integrate' as easily as Europeans.
Another Bill to be introduced with H.R 3012 provisions
From the Richmond Times
"WASHINGTON, D.C. --
In an unlikely alliance, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., will today join with tea-party favorite Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in introducing legislation to build on the Jobs Act signed into law earlier this year.
Joined by Sens. Christopher Coons, D-Del., and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., Warner and Rubio are rolling out the Startup Act 2.0, aimed at helping new businesses add to their payrolls and jump-start the still-ailing economy.
"Eighty percent of all the new jobs that have been created in the last 20 years have been created by new businesses," Warner said Monday in a phone interview.
While the startups bill passed earlier this year eased access to capital for fledgling businesses, the new bill would take a multipronged approach to helping them gain access to talent.
The legislation's core component is the creation of two new visas for legal immigrants: an "entrepreneur's visa" to allow immigrants creating jobs to stay put and a "STEM visa" for U.S.-educated foreign students who graduate with a master's or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
"You read about Microsoft moving thousands of research jobs to China and India because they can't hire enough Americans in those fields," Warner said. "Why would we go out and train some of the world's best and brightest and then send them home if we can't fill those jobs with Americans? … This is to keep these jobs here."
The bill also would eliminate the per-country caps for employment-based immigrant visas.
A few of its other provisions are:
making permanent the exemption of capital-gains taxes on the sale of certain small-business stock held for at least five years;
creating a targeted research and development tax credit for businesses less than five years old and with less than $5 million in annual receipts;
using existing federal funding to support taxpayer-funded university initiatives designed to bring research to the marketplace more quickly;
requiring all government agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of all proposed rules and regulations with an economic impact of $100 million or more."
I guess this bill does not increase family based GCs so should be more palatable to republicans - but less so to democrats?
To Randomax
I was just practising due diligence and was reporting what had happened yesterday.The Bill is a mixture of features of 2 already existing Bills S.1866 (11/15/11) also known as the AGREE Act and S.1965 (12/8/2011) also known as the Start Up Act 0f 2011. These Bills have not made much headway and the 4 principal Senators involved in this Bill were also primary sponsors of the previous legislations. In fairness S.1965 did get a hearing in March but has not been taken up by Committee or reported. Also because it involves so many issues it may have to go through additional committees including judiciary before being placed on the Calendar. I think the 3012 provisions got included as these were part of the AGREE Act. The main problem with the new Bill is that it incorporates the provisions from S.1965 for creating 2 new visa categories for STEM graduates (55000 annually) and Entreprenuers (75000 annually) for a total additonal visa count of 130000 annually. This may be the main contentious issue as there are other Bills which have no increase in total immigration which are also struggling to make headway.
Thanks for the explanation GS1968, that makes sense.
Bill Bill everywhere but nothing seems to be passing.
Our H.R. 3012 story is a triangular story... from the news which is coming out for the past several months.
1. Sen.Grassley's Hold
2. Sen.Schumer's intervention to add E-3 propsal.. backed by Sen Brown
3. Sen.Harry Reid is not interested to pass any immigration bill without his DREAM Act.
if you ask Sen.Chuck Schumer he would say, all because of sen.Grassley's hold.
if you ask Sen.Grassley. he would say, I am ready to lift the hold provided Sen.Schumer is not adding any E-3 provision to the bill. Sen.Brown already given up and do not know what to do now.
if you ask Sen.Harry Reid. he will always say COMPREHENSIVE COMPREHENSIVE!
We should wait for the fall. to know the final out come of this Great Political football results.
Still keeping positive vibes about our H.R.3012. and strongly believe that it will be law by end of this year!
Do you think HR 3012 have that long shelf life? I hope it does.
Quote:
Originally Posted by immitime
HR 3012:
1) Points For: Employment based should not restrict individual countries
2) Points Against: Punishes ROWs by pushing them behind the queue
3) Middle Ground: Increase Per Country limits from 7 to 25%; This makes everyone happy and helps address immediate concern of many ICs;
STAR Act:
1) Points For: This would greatly help EB2-IC from STEM fields as it brings in more visa numbers from a category thus helping address US economy issues
2) Points Against: Diversity Visa is a tool used to reduce illegal immigration as well as a tool to bring in low-cost unskilled labor force in US
3) Middle Ground: Reduce Diversity Visa numbers from 55000 to something more meaningful like 20000. Allocate the reduced numbers to EB categories: 140000 + 35000 = 175000
4) Personal Opinion: This is just a political show and this would go no where. Similar bils have rusted in the House in 110th as well as 111th Congress sessions. 2012 is an election year and everyone knows nothing about immigration improvement would happen in this year.
SMART Act:
This simply would not fly as it calls for increasing the total number of legal immigrations to US.
Old Referrence Article on Visa Numbers:
http://immigrationroad.com/visa-bull...it-and-cap.php
Total Family Based Green Cards: 480,000 / Year
Total Employment Based Green Cards: 140,000 / Year
Total Diversity Based Green Cards: 55,000 / Year
Points not very apparent in the above classification:
1) Family Based == "What US Citizens Want"
2) Employment Based == "What Employers Want"
3) Diversity Based == "All other reasons which cannot be truly justified" (Aka low-cost unskilled labor)
Points that policy makers don't get:
1) Family Based => Good chunk gets employed in US
2) Employment Based => Unfairly gets the heat of labor policies
3) Diversity Based => Many skilled ROWs can apply through this
In my opinion there are a few things which can be done by the Policy makers:
1) Mandate EB-ROWs who can apply through Diversity Visa MUST apply first through Diversity Visa. If that doesn't work out, apply in regular EB categories keeping the original priority date (hence preferrence in getting green card sooner).
2) EB5 should NOT be classified under EB category at all. Foreign investors/business starters are not "looking for employment" in US.
3) Stricter EB categories: EB1 > EB2 > EB3; Thus, all visa allocations MUST be done in that order; This one would raise red flags but its the right thing to do;
Rationale for (3):
Stricter EB categories would mean:
a) EB2-IC > EB3-ROW; Thus, visa allocations would be done to EB2-IC before EB3-ROW;
b) EB3 to EB2 porting becomes necessary as no visas would get allocated to EB3 until EB2 queue is addressed
4) US Citizenship: This forever waiting time on green card queue by people of IC origin should be recognized by US government as valid stay that counts towards US Citizenship requirements;
Source - immigration-law.com
STARTUP Act, S.3217, Introduced in the Senate on 05/22/2012 by Five (5) Senators (Bi-Partisan)
U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), cosponsored by four other Senators, Mark Warner (D-Va.), along with Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), and Sen. Blunt, introduced yesterday Startup Act 2.0 – bipartisan legislation that picks up where the JOBS Act left off by doing more to jumpstart the economy through the creation and growth of new businesses. Startup Act 2.0 builds upon the original Startup Act, introduced by Sens. Moran and Warner in December 2011, and the AGREE Act, introduced by Sens. Coons and Rubio in November 2011.
Startup Act 2.0 includes the following provisions:
Creates a new STEM visa so that U.S.-educated foreign students, who graduate with a master’s or Ph.D. in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, can receive a green card and stay in this country where their talent and ideas can fuel growth and create American jobs;
Creates an Entrepreneur’s Visa for legal immigrants, so they can remain in the United States, launch businesses and create jobs;
Eliminates the per-country caps for employment-based immigrant visas – which hinder U.S. employers from recruiting the top-tier talent they need to grow;
Makes permanent the exemption of capital gains taxes on the sale of startup stock held for at least five years – so investors can provide financial stability at a critical juncture of firm growth;
Creates a targeted research and development tax credit for young startups less than five years old and with less than $5 million in annual receipts. This R&D credit is designed to allow startups to offset employee taxes – freeing up resources to help these young companies expand and create jobs;
Uses existing federal R&D funding to support university initiatives designed to bring cutting-edge research to the marketplace more quickly where it can propel economic growth;
Requires all government agencies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of all proposed “major rules” with an economic impact of $100 million or more. This new requirement will help determine the efficacy of regulations and their potential impact on the formation and growth of new businesses; and
Directs the U.S. Department of Commerce to assess state and local policies that aid in the development of new businesses. Through the publication of reports on new business formation and the entrepreneurial environment, lawmakers will be better equipped to encourage entrepreneurship with the most successful policies.
Please note that this bill includes elimination of per country limit for employment-based immigrant visas, which is currently stuck in the Senate in the form of H.R. 3012. Please also note that one of the co-sponsors is Senator Marco Rubio who is expected to introduce a watered-down DREAM bill in the Senate soon. The immigrant community was curious whether Senator Rubio will tie two bills (STARTUP bill and DREAM bill) together to make both bills successfully pass the Congress, but report indicates that Senator Rubio wants to see each of these two bills go on its separate and own path and separate merit. Hmm..... Interesting. Please stay tuned for the full text of the bill.
To immitime,randomax and others
Did this really happen? How are they going to find time to work on the STARTUP ACT 2.0 if there are more important Bills like the one below from yesterday to be addressed?
"Discharged the Banking committee and passed S.2367, a bill to strike the word “lunatic” from Federal law, and for other purposes."
gs,
If we can believe this... below statement on Irish echo site stated yesterday.[link below]
But now, Schumer staffers are looking at a new bid for House of Representatives backing that would potentially see an E3 standing on its own feet --and not attached to any “country caps” bill.
http://irishecho.com/?p=71868
And combining the previous news or statement from Sen.Grassley.
if you can read in between the news coming out. Now Schumer and Brown stopped adding amendments to H.R.3012 and Grassley is ready to lift the hold provided there is no Irish E-3 provisions added. Please see below.
See Grassley's exact wording on National Journal article approximately 2 months back.
“It’s the only immigration bill that’s going to be around for two years. So if you want to get some reforms, you take every opportunity you can to take an immigration bill and [fix] other things wrong with immigration.” —Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, on the Chaffetz bil
http://www.nationaljournal.com/featu...d-out-20120315
So now it is all set as per the news coming out. Only thing Senators should act!
So now is the time to pass H.R. 3012... at least if not this Summer by late fall.
That is why positively HR 3012 should be law soon! Praying for all of us .