0) How we should start our campaign
We should send mail to all people who might be
affected by this bill, specifically, foreign
students and professionals in the U.S. such as
people from India, southeast Asia, Middle East,
and other foreign countries. the more support
we drum up, the more letters and phone calls
those congressman receive, the better. Posting
relevant messages on Internet newsgroup will
help greatly.
1) How the current bill will affect legal, employment-based
immigration:
--> Number of visas allocated for employment-based
immigration will be cut from 140,000 per year to
100,000 per year. From the 100,000 visas will be
deducted the number of visas to satisfy excess
demand in the family category. In summary, less
visas, much longer waiting time.
--> For people with only a B.S degree falling under
the 3rd category, 5 year professional experience
is required to get a green card. For skilled
workers without a degree it is 7 years.
This could get worse if we don't let our opinions heard!
We must aggressively lobby the congress to remove the
above provisions in the bill!
2) Current status of the bill
Right now this bill is in the House Judiciary
committee. Because the house is busy with the Waco
hearing, full committee action will be after Labor
day, the second week of September.
The bill will probably come up for a vote in the
house in the third week of September.
If pass in the house --> goto the Joint committee
of the House and Senate
to reach a common bill
---> then voted by the senate
---> then sent to the President for signature
3) Who we should contact to voice our concern on the
bill.
The following list is far from complete, stay tuned
for more listings.
Call and mail letters to the following people ( who
are members of the House Judiciary Committee ) before
full committee action in September!
Ms. Zou Lofgren: 202/225-3072 (phone)
202/225-3336 (fax)
She's from San Jose, and would very much to hear
about the opinion of the people from San Jose.
Henry Hyde: 202/225-4561
John Bryant: 202/225-2231
Lamar Smith: 202/225-4326
Their mailing addresses are:
(Name)
2110 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington D.C. 20515
Every phone call, letter and fax counts! I called Ms.
Lofgren's office this morning, the lady who answered
the phone is very courteous, and I believe that they
do take our opinions seriously.
4) What we should say in our phone call or letters
--> We must differentiate illegal immigration from
legal, employment-based immigration. Most of
these legal immigrants are highly skilled
people with advanced degrees, they contribute
greatly to the competitiveness of the US in
the global economy. We should not place more
restrictions, or cut visa quotas for those
legal, employment-based immigrants. It's not
to the interest of America to do that.
--> Deducting visa quotas from emplyment-based
immigration to reduce backlogs in the
family-based immigrations category is simply
unfair and unreasonable.
5) Where we can get info on the net.
Full text of the bill:
ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c104/h1915.ih.FTP
H.R. 1915:
http://rs9.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/8?c104:./temp/~c104IgDi::1915
Congressional Record:
http://rs9.loc.gov/home/r104/r104.html