A bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators unveiled the outlines of a comprehensive immigration-reform bill on Tuesday that would speed the path to citizenship for students who are in the United States illegally and would make it easier for some foreign graduates of American universities to remain in the country to work.
The “Gang of Eight” plan, which would tackle border security as well as legalization, would grant provisional legal status to such immigrants who paid a $500 fine and back taxes, allowing them to work in the United States and travel outside the country. After 10 years, the plan says, they could apply for a green card.
College students who were brought to the country illegally as children, a group known as “Dreamers,” would not have to pay the fine and could apply for a green card after only five years. Once they received a green card, they would be immediately eligible for citizenship, along with federal student aid.
They would also be exempt from the bill’s requirement that no immigrants be granted provisional status until four criteria for securing the U.S.-Mexico border were met. Dreamers who have been deported would be allowed to re-enter the country in provisional status.
Cesar Vargas, a spokesman for the Dream Act Coalition, welcomed the plan, but said his group would push lawmakers to eliminate the five-year waiting period for Dreamers.
Ending a ‘Self-Defeating Policy’
The senators’ plan would also drop limits on the number of employment-based green cards granted to individuals with doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, as well as “outstanding professors and researchers” and “aliens of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, professions, or business.”
The plan would raise the cap on H-1B temporary work visas, from 65,000 to 110,000, and set aside 40 percent of that total for workers with advanced degrees and individuals who had earned advanced degrees in STEM fields from American institutions within the previous five years. An additional 25,000 visas would go to individuals with advanced degrees in the STEM fields—an increase from the current 20,000 exemption for all advanced-degree holders.
Under the plan, students applying for visas to attend an American institution would no longer have to prove that they would leave the country after graduation—a concept known as “intent to return.” Instead, all foreign students would be granted “dual intent” visas.
M. Peter McPherson, president of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, said in a written statement that the changes would “end the national self-defeating policy of training some of the best and brightest students at U.S. universities in critical STEM fields to then only watch them leave the U.S. and apply their skills in competition with us.” The plan, he said, would also help colleges “hire and retain the most talented researchers and educators throughout the world.”
The compromise has the support of members of both parties, but border security remains a thorny issue, and it’s unclear if the plan has the votes to pass Congress. President Obama hailed the plan on Tuesday and said he would work to ensure its passage.
