American Workers Can’t Wait Another Minute

As Congress returns to Washington in a few days, no more pressing issue faces leaders in the House of Representatives than immigration reform. In 1990, Congress recognized how important immigration was to our economy and passed the Immigration Act of 1990. This law created a new visa category tied to U.S. job creation. Yet over time, the number of these visas for high-skilled workers began to fill up quickly as our innovation economy continued to grow. As a result, the limits set by Congress on high-skilled visas are preventing jobs creation in America today.

Congress must act this year to end the visa crisis and stop the loss of jobs that we are experiencing.

For years, economists have argued that closing the door to high-skilled immigrants hurts the American economy. Starting today, people can see it for themselves.

Compete America, a coalition of America’s top tech companies, universities and trade associations, is unveiling the “Jobs Loss Calculator” on our website at www.competeamerica.org. The calculator will keep track in real time of how the H-1B Visa crisis is preventing the creation of new American jobs. Every 43 seconds, the calculator will add a new job lost because of the visa crisis. This is the first time in the history of the immigration debate that ordinary citizens will be able to visually see how the visa problem is impacting the entire economy.

Here is the basic problem: The H-1B program for legal skilled immigration imposes a cap of 85,000 visas annually, yet the American economy needs many more scientists and engineers. In fact, last year in 2013, approximately 124,000 applications for H-1B Visas were received and the application process was closed after just four days. In other words, after just four days, America’s most innovative businesses were no longer able to hire the talent they need to grow their companies. The process will start on April 1, which is around the corner.

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