Speech #1100050496

That was the promise we were made. that this new bill was going to make a move toward the Canadian system. There are some steps in that direction but. unfortunately. not enough. I expressed concern at the time that the White House plan appeared to increase the number of green cards available each year. Page 21 of the bill indicated 1.4 million would be available each year. now at 1.1. 1 also stated it would be critical to examine how the point system was actually written. that the actual test had to ensure that lowskilled workers would not receive preference for green cards over highskilled workers. Even though some business may think that is great. to have a bunch of lowskilled workers. that may not be the best thing for the national interest. Nor does the bill fulfill that principle we were told should be included in an immigration bill. Will green card allocations be adjusted to focus more on merit? Will chain migration be ended? The new bill will only do a fraction of the good it could have done. That is what is so frustrating to me. It came close. It made some progress. but it could have been so much better. We could have made a cleaner move to this kind of enlightened approach to immigration. They say we are going to end chain migration. Chain migration would be the ability to bring brothers and sisters into the country if you have been made a citizen. Also I thought it meant you would end the ability to bring in aging parents. but typical of the cutting the baby In half. the political compromise basically cut the number of parents in half who could come. So a number of aging parents will still be able to chain migrate in if their children have obtained citizenship. That is in the future. however. But between now and 2015. chain migration does not end but is actually accelerated. I kid you not. Instead of actually ending chain migration. the new bill only stops accepting new chain migration applications. The bills sponsors take the numbers they eliminate from chain migration categories. about 200.000 per year. and then allocate those to adjusting the backlogged chain migration applications. In other words. people who have applied for chain migration get to come in. If this were not enough. the bills sponsors then take the green card numbers freed up through elimination of the visa lottery program50.000and also dedicate those numbers to processing not highskilled people but the chain migration backlog applications. Even after 8 years. when the chain migration backlog is supposed to be eliminated. points for family members will be issued through the merit system. So we are creating a socalled merit system. but it is skewed also. not to merit but to family. Six points are given for adult sons and daughters of permanent residents. four points for siblings of citizens and permanent residents. and two extra points if you have applied for a chain migration category between May 1. 2005 and now. So we are giving substantial points. tipping value points to lower skilled workers because they happen to be involved in the chain migration process. I dont think that is a good principle. It undermines the move we have been promised occurs through a meritbased system. Let me make this point. The merit system as proposed in the legislation will not receive "100.000 openings in year one" alone. as the PowerPoint presentation we were given promised. For the first 5 years. current employmentbased visa levels are kept the same140.000until 2015. Only after 8 years will the number of employmentbased. skillbased. green cards be increased to 380.000. So in reality. chain migration numbers between now and 2015 will skyrocket. Chain migration is going to increase until 2015. The portion of familybased migration versus meritbased migration will be worse than it is today. perhaps much worse. Think about that.