Friday, May 24, 2013

IMMIGRATION - Guest Worker Program

"Could More Highly Skilled Guest Workers Help Spark Tech-Driven Economy?" PBS Newshour 5/23/2013

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour):  On Capitol Hill today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a comprehensive immigration proposal will be debated in June.  And House Republicans said they won't vote on the Senate version, but will pull together their own legislation instead.

We continue our conversations about the issue in our series “Inside Immigration Reform.”

Ray Suarez has that.

RAY SUAREZ (Newshour):  Tonight's focus, the number of highly skilled foreign workers allowed to enter the U.S.

We examine how the visa program known as “H-1B” is structured now and the proposed changes with Vivek Wadhwa, a fellow at Stanford Law School and author of the book "The Immigrant Exodus:  Why America Is Losing the Global Race to Capture Entrepreneurial Talent," and Ron Hira, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Rochester Institute Of Technology.

And, Professor Hira, the United States admits about a million immigrants a year.  Is it a relatively small share of that million that we're talking about with the H-1B visas?

RON HIRA, Rochester Institute of Technology:  Well, actually, we admit about a million permanent residents each year, and about 140,000 or so are high-skilled permanent residents.  That's Green Cards.

The H-1B is actually a guest-worker program, and in there, in the guest-worker program, we admit about 115,000 a year.  There's a cap of 85,000.  So, these are actually two separate numbers and separate programs.  One is a guest-worker program.  One is a Green Card program.

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