Indian engineering graduate, Ashish Kumar, has been working for a New Jersey IT company since 2003 on a renewed H1B visa. Per-country caps have kept him waiting for years for a green card, and he was considering taking his engineering skills back home to India until the House of Representatives passed legislation on a bipartisan vote that would remove the caps, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.

Legislation aside, there are steps the Executive Branch can take to make it easier for high-skilled immigrants to remain in the U.S. and add to the economy.

Randy Johnson, Chamber senior vice president for Labor, Immigration and Employee Benefits, joined Austin Fragomen, chairman of the American Council on International Personnel, and Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), in penning a Daily Caller op-ed outlining a number of policy recommendations based on a recent NFAP report:

• Sharply curtail requests for evidence by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services examiners and adjudicate cases in a timely manner.
• Engage in enforcement that does not waste public and private resources by subjecting employers to redundant audits.
• To keep skilled foreign nationals in the country, reform labor certification, a part of the green card process, to reflect real world recruitment practices of employers.
• Allow skilled professionals who are waiting years (or potentially decades) for green cards to file early for adjustment of status prior to when a visa number is available. While this would not award green card status any faster, it would help our country retain skilled foreign nationals by giving them greater labor mobility and work authorization for spouses while waiting for final green card issuance.
• To discourage illegal immigration, make visa rules less bureaucratic for agricultural and other seasonal workers.
• Relieve long-time employer sponsors with good track records of certain burdensome application procedures.
• To foster start-ups, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should rescind its January 2010 policy guidance memo on H-1B sponsorship that prohibits a company from petitioning for its founder.