Is US to launch a pilot program with 55000 new Green Cards in the next two years?
On Tuesday, Senator Charles Schumer unveiled the "BRAINS" Act (a.k.a the Benefits to Research and American Innovation through Nationality Statutes Act), an immigration bill to make an additional 55,000 green cards available each year to foreign-born graduates of American universities, if they have advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) fields.
Graduates must also have a job offer from a U.S. company in a STEM field to receive a green card under the bill. The BRAINS Act would also make it easier for students planning to study a STEM discipline in the U.S. to obtain a student visa.
“It makes no sense that America is educating the world’s smartest and most talented students and then, once they are at their full potential and mastered their craft, kicking them out the door,” said Schumer in a statement. “We should be encouraging every brilliant and well-educated immigrant to stay here, build a business here, create wealth here, employ people here, and grow our economy. Fixing our broken green card system will help ensure that the next eBay, the next Google, the next Intel will be started in New York City, not in Shanghai or Bangalore or London.”
The proposal is similar to Rep. Lamar Smith's highly-skilled immigration bill that's set for a House vote later this week. Smith's STEM Jobs Act has 44 co-sponsors, and will eliminate the diversity visa program(Green Card Lottery).
Smith’s bill would provide up to the same number of green cards as Schumer’s legislation, but foreign-born students who earn a doctorate degree in a STEM discipline will have first dibs. Students who receive master’s degrees in eligible fields will have access to the remaining green cards.
While few lawmakers oppose the allocation of green cards for high-skilled immigrants, Smith’s bill has come under fire from Congressional Democrats because it would eliminate the diversity visa program, which makes visas available to people from countries with low immigration rates to the U.S., according to The Hill. The BRAINS Act does not eliminate the diversity visa program.
