Speech #1050113047

Through careful investment in education we can increase the skill levels of our workers. to everyones benefit. The legislation I am introducing will address these issues in the following ways: First. the bill will increase access to skilled personnel for U.S. companies and universities. The bill will make approximately 25.000 more HlB temporary visas available in 1998. A key goal of the legislation is to make sure there are enough visas this year to avoid backlogs and major disruptions. For that reason. the 1998 cap will be twice the level of the first 6 months of this fiscal year (through March 31. 1998). which. based on current INS data. would give a 12month total of about 90.000 visas for the year. As a safety valve. if that total is insufficient in a future year. as of FY 1999. other temporary visas that Congress has already authorized (H2B visas). if they are left unused from the previous year. would be available. No more than 25.000 of these H2B visas could be made available as a safety valve in a given year. The bill also responds to those who have expressed concern about certain occupations being included within the H1B visa category. The bill removes physical/occupational therapists and other specialized health care workers from the H1B program and places them into a new temporary visa category called HiC. with a limit of 10.000 placed on such visas. Accordingly. the bill subtracts 10.000 from the H1B cap in the first year of availability of H1C visas. In each subsequent year. any unused H1C visas from the previous year will be added back to the HlB cap. The bill leaves unchanged the employmentbased immigration cap of 140.000 on the number of foreignborn professionals who may remain permanently in the country. Second. the bill authorizes $50 million for the State Student Incentive Grant (SSIG) program to create approximately 20.000 scholarships a year for lowincome students pursuing an associate. undergraduate. or graduate level degree in mathematics. engineering or computer science. The program provides dollarfordollar federal matching funds that will grow to $100 million with state matching.