Republican rift threatens high-tech immigration bill

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, introduced legislation this month that would tweak the nation’s immigration laws, making it easier for high-tech firms in the United States to hire more foreign specialists in so-called “STEM” fields — science, technology, engineering and math. The bill, which has several Democratic as well as Republican sponsors, would increase the number of high-tech visas to 115,000 a year from 65,000. That cap could go as high as 195,000 in any one year if there were enough demand for the workers. High-tech firms for years also have been pushing for an increase in the quotas, saying that a lack of talented high-tech workers in the U.S. has stifled innovation and production that ultimately hurts the nation’s economy. But Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called such talk a “false claim” and a “hoax” and has been actively pressing his Senate GOP colleagues to oppose the proposal. “Not only is there no shortage of qualified Americans ready, able and eager to fill these jobs, there is a huge surplus of Americans trained in these fields who are unable to find employment,” the Alabama Republican said in his 2015 “immigration handbook,” a 23-page memo he’s been circulating among Republican senators. Sessions has accused high-tech firms of manufacturing the “myth” of an American high-tech worker shortage to flood the market with workers to keep wages down. He cites recent Census data showing that three in four Americans with STEM degrees don’t hold a job in one of those fields...more