Immigration reform bill like ‘rearranging deck chairs on sinking Titanic’

The House of Representatives is voting today on a partial immigration reform bill.

Stephen Yale-Loehr, professor of immigration law at Cornell Law School and co-author of a leading 21-volume immigration law series, says if enacted, the bill would help some immigrants get green cards faster, but would make the process slower for others.

Yale-Loehr says:

“Among other things, the bill would gradually end per-country caps on employment-based green cards over nine years. The bill would also add additional green cards for nurses and physical therapists for seven years and impose new requirements on H-1B temporary work visa petitions.

“Even if the House passes the bill today, it is unlikely to pass the Senate, simply because of the few remaining days left before Congress leaves for the holidays. 

“The bill tries to address the long backlogs that some immigrants currently face. However, it fails to strike the right balance of ending per-country caps without adversely affecting other immigrants. People from India and China would benefit by removing the per-country caps, but other immigrants would face longer waits. 

“This bill is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the ship is sinking. Instead of this stopgap measure, Congress should reform all of our broken immigration system.”

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