Rep. Goodlatte Says House Working Behind the Scenes on Immigration, “Earned Path to Citizenship”
“Rep. Bob Goodlatte said the immigration issue needs to be solved and work is happening behind the scenes toward that goal.The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday pledged action on immigration overhaul legislation even as most of the attention on Capitol Hill is focused on fights over the budget and debt,” Fox News Latino writes.
“Goodlatte, R-Va., said members of his committee are working on four bills to address various aspects of the immigration system, in addition to four that the committee already has approved. He didn’t elaborate on the bills in the works, but he and others have previously discussed legislation to grant work visas to lower-skilled workers, as well as a bill to give immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as kids an ‘earned path to citizenship,’ as he described it Thursday.”
High Skill Visa Bill Dependent on Amnesty
“In April, the Senate put together a comprehensive immigration reform bill that was then sent to the House of Representatives where it currently languishes. Once wrapped into the larger comprehensive immigration reform push, high-skilled immigration reform’s success became dependent on the passage of the full bill,” says TechCrunch.com.
“It wasn’t always this way. In the Senate, for example, the Immigration Innovation Act from early 2013 would have raised the hard cap of H-1B visas to 300,000 per year over time, and grant U.S. companies free rein to apply for H-1B visas for workers who graduated from U.S. universities with technical degrees. It was a simple and bipartisan proposal.”
Utah College, University Presidents Push Amnesty
“Utah’s college and university presidents again are calling on Congress to pass [amnesty]. In a letter addressed to Utah’s four members of the U.S. House of Representatives, the presidents of the University of Utah, Utah State University, Weber State University, Southern Utah University, Westminster College, Dixie State University and Snow College urge lawmakers to work toward a bipartisan compromise on immigration legislation,” KSL.com writes.
“The letter also addresses the role foreign-born students play at Utah schools, particularly in master’s and Ph.D. studies and in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, collectively referred to as STEM. According to the letter, 29 percent of Ph.D. and master’s students in Utah schools were temporary residents with no clear path to American citizenship and more than half of students earning a Ph.D. in engineering are not naturalized citizens.”
House Gang of 7 Bill Not Moving, Says Gutierrez
“In a blow to the hopes of passing immigration reform anytime soon, the bipartisan House “gang of seven” plan is probably dead, and almost certainly won’t be introduced this fall as promised, a top Democrat on the “gang” acknowledges. “It doesn’t appear that we’re going to move forward with the group of seven,” Dem Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a key player on immigration as a member of the gang, said in an interview with me. “The process is stalled. I don’t believe we’re going to produce a bill anytime soon,'” says Greg Sargent in the Washington Post.
“This undermines the already dwindling prospects for reform, because the House “gang of seven” plan — which would provide a path to citizenship but is significantly to the right of the Senate bill — was seen as a comprehensive plan Republicans who genuinely want to solve the immigration problem just might coalesce around. (The gang of seven plan would reportedly provide for a probationary period for the 11 million, in which they’d admit wrongdoing, and onerous conditions for the path to citizenship, which would be 15 years long.)”