Speeches

I would like to speak briefly about Sen. Durbin’s recent request for a hearing about the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act is a bill that many senators have worked on for nearly a decade, and has long been a top priority of mine. I have introduced this bill in the Senate every Congress since I was first elected in 2010. During that time it has been the subject of widespread debate and attention both on and off the Hill, and other members, including Senator Schumer, have sought to pass the bill, as I am doing, by unanimous consent.

Mr./Madam President, I rise again today to speak about the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act – an important and bipartisan piece of legislation, which passed the House in July by an overwhelming vote of 365-65. As I have explained in this chamber before, the concept of the bill is simple. Our current method for allocating green cards caps the total number of green cards that nationals of a given country can receive. In practice, this results in de facto country-of-origin discrimination. Because immigrants from countries with large populations are restricted to receiving the same number of visas as immigrants from smaller countries, their wait times have ballooned, in some cases stretching on for literally decades.