CHC ON LAMAR SMITH BILL

Washington D.C.: Congressman Charles A. Gonzalez (TX 20), Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC):

“The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has a long-standing offer to meet and negotiate with those who are interested in efforts to improve our immigration policies. Rep. Lamar Smith put forth a bill that he was unwilling to negotiate and set a time line that could never realistically be met.

The CHC and most Democrats understand how important STEM visas are for job creation and in fact Democrats, led by Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Rep. John Conyers, have been working on a STEM bill. However, Republicans chose to stop discussions and to work on their own partisan bill.

The CHC stands ready to negotiate in good faith to reach an agreement that addresses all essentials aspects in seeking to increase STEM related visas."

Congresswoman Judy Chu (CA-32), Chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC):

“Both Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly support increasing STEM visas for foreign students so that they can stay, work, and innovate here in the U.S. But the GOP STEM proposal represents a flawed approach. It gets rid of 50,000 legal immigrant visas each year from the Diversity Visa Program and reduces the number of available visas overall. At a time when we have record backlogs of family members of American citizens waiting years to join their loved ones, we should not have to kill off existing immigration programs to increase STEM visas. We all know that our immigration system is broken, but reducing legal immigration is not the way to fix it. I urge both sides to come together to work on a balanced approach that will keep our economy competitive rather than poisoning a popular issue with partisan ploys.”