The feelings about illegal immigrants have impacted all immigrants, and have put them all into one big group. Skilled workers trying to get specific visas are trying to hurry immigration reform along. This country needs skilled workers - and businesses suffer when they can't work here. DP
Skilled workers say visa reform a separate issue from illegal immigration
By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
dallasnews.com: Roopa Aragolam has little in common with the millions of illegal immigrants who toil in restaurants and hotels and on construction sites. But her fate, it seems, is tied up with theirs.
Ms. Aragolam, a master's student at the University of Texas at Dallas who is from India, will need a special visa to work in the U.S. Her chances to get one are "pretty bad," she reasons, given the shortage that has developed in recent years.
Raising the number of high-skilled worker permits, known as H1B visas, has bipartisan support in Washington. But many members of Congress, alternately skittish and brash about the hot-potato subject of immigration, disavow any bill that doesn't tackle illegal immigration and border security.
"H1B is only for people with specialized knowledge, who bring intellectual knowledge to the country," said Ms. Aragolam, 26. "Putting them in the same frame as illegal immigrants is totally wrong."
A growing chorus of immigration advocates and businesses agrees with her. Yet their voice has been drowned out as presidential candidates, particularly Republicans, hustle for votes with proclamations to expel illegal immigrants and seal porous borders.
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
1 comment:
This is my second attempt. I disagree that skilled immigration is distinct from undocumented since many skilled can't get visas so they come in anyway.
Also, the H1B category is too small and too narrow to satisfy the shortage. Not all skill requirements in home care are covered by H1B. We are fortunate to have found one when we couldn't through agencies. In Canada, they let sufficient come in legally so they take jobs below their certification which can't be filled by citizens.
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