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NEED FOR GREEN CARDS FOR HIGHLY

SKILLED WORKERS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, 

CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, 

AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 12, 2008

Serial No. 110–89

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. ‘‘BOBBY’’ SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

SEAN MCLAUGHLIN, Minority Chief of Staff and General Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES,

BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chairwoman

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas

UR MENDOZA JADDOU, Chief Counsel 

GEORGE FISHMAN, Minority Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

JUNE 12, 2008

Page 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, 

Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ........................................... 1

The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ................................................... 2

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 3

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 4

WITNESSES 

Mr. Edward Sweeney, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources, 

National Semiconductor Corporation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 7

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 9

Mr. Lee Colby, Electrical Engineer, Lee Colby & Associates, Past Chair of 

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Santa Clara Valley 

SECTION 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 18

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 19

Mr. John Pearson, Director of the Bechtel International Center, Stanford 

University, Association of International Educators 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 22

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 24

Mr. Yongjie Yang, Legal Immigrant Association 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 38

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 39

Mr. Mark Krikorian, Executive Director, Center for Immigration Studies 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 40

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 42

Ms. Jana Stonestreet, Chief Nursing Executive, Baptist Health System 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 51

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 54

Ms. Cheryl A. Peterson, Senior Policy Fellow, American Nurses Association 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 61

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 62

Mr. Steven Francy, Executive Director, RNS Working Together, AFL-CIO 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 66

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 68

Page

IV

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on 

Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International 

Law ........................................................................................................................ 79

Prepared Statement of the Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on 

the Judiciary ......................................................................................................... 79

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Sheila Jackson Lee, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Texas, and Member, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law ....... 81

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Earl Pomeroy, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of North Dakota ......................................................... 82

Prepared Statement of Mary Amundson, M.A., Center for Rural Health, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences ................... 83

Prepared Statement of Jack Krumholtz, Managing Director Federal Government Affairs, Microsoft ........................................................................................ 85

Letter from Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., the Association of American Medical 

Colleges (AAMC) .................................................................................................. 86

Letter from Rick Pollack, Executive Vice President, the American Hospital 

Association ............................................................................................................ 88

Letter from Roger Cochetti, Director—U.S. Public Policy, CompTIA ................. 90

Letter from Immigration Voice, the National Cooperative of Health Networks 

Association, the National Health Care Access Coalition, the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health, the National Rural Health Association, the National Rural Recruitment and Retention Network (3RNet), 

and the North Dakota Hospital Association ...................................................... 92

Letter from Michael D. Maves, MD, MBA, Executive Vice President, CEO, 

the American Medical Association ...................................................................... 94

Letter from Nancy McClure, Senior Vice President, HealthPartners Medical 

Group and Clinics ................................................................................................ 95

OFFICIAL HEARING RECORD 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD BUT NOT REPRINTED

Report entitled Educating Tomorrow’s Workforce, April 2008, submitted by Edward 

Sweeney, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources, National Semiconductor Corporation This report is available at the Subcommittee and can also be 

accessed at:

http://www.sia-online.org/downloads/K12lCatalogl2007-2008.pdf 

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NEED FOR GREEN CARDS FOR HIGHLY 

SKILLED WORKERS 

THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2008

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP,

REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:05 a.m., in 

Room 2237, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable Zoe 

Lofgren(Cchairwoman of the Subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Lofgren, Gutierrez, Waters, 

Smith, King, Goodlatte, and Lungren. 

Staff present: Blake Chisam, Majority Counsel; George Fishman, 

Minority Counsel; and Andres Jimenez, Majority Professional Staff 

Member. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I understand that Mr. Goodlatte is on his way. So 

maybe we will begin just the opening portion of this hearing. 

Oh, here he is right now. Very good. 

Chairman CONYERS. Speak of the devil. 

Ms. LOFGREN. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Immigration, 

Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law will 

come to order. 

I would like to welcome the Subcommittee Members, our witnesses, and members of the public to the Subcommittee’s hearing 

to explore the need for green cards for highly educated employees 

in the field of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, 

otherwise known as STEM, as well as the situation in nursing. 

There is a recognized shortage of U.S. employees available to fill 

jobs requiring the highest educational levels, particularly in the 

field of STEM. According to the National Foundation for American 

Policy, major U.S. technology companies today average more than 

470 U.S.-based job openings for skilled positions, while defense 

companies have more than 1,265 each, indicating U.S. businesses 

continue to experience difficulty in filling positions in the United 

States at the highest educational levels. 

At the same time our country is experiencing shortage in U.S. 

employees at the highest educational levels, employers from Europe, Australia, Canada, and even China and India are increasingly attracting to their shores the highly educated, high-achieving 

scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers that are the 

foundation for innovation. In 2000, for example, 75 percent of the 

2

world’s engineers were hired by U.S. employers. Just 6 years later, 

in 2006, that percentage had dropped to 63 percent. 

Today, more than half of the graduates from U.S. universities in 

master’s and Ph.D. programs in science and engineering are foreign 

born. To ensure that America remains the greatest source of innovation in the world, we must not only educate more U.S. students 

in STEM. We must retain the best and brightest innovators among 

our graduates so that they can work with us rather than compete 

against us in other countries. 

In addition, at the same time that nursing schools are unable to 

produce enough nurses to meet existing health care needs around 

the country, the demand for nurses is projected to continue increasing at high rates as the baby boom generation hits retirement and 

birth rates plunge. Currently, 12.4 percent of the U.S. population 

is aged 65 and older. That percentage is projected to increase to 

16.3 percent in 2020 and 20 percent in 2030. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how the 

current immigration system has failed to respond effectively to 

these economic and health care challenges and what might be done 

to address the situation in the near and long term. 

I would now like to recognize Mr. Goodlatte for his opening statement. 

Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, thank you, Madam Chairman. 

It is important to note at the outset that this hearing is about 

legal immigration, not illegal immigration or amnesty. I have long 

believed that legal immigration has blessed our Nation with talent, 

diversity, and a commitment to freedom and the rule of law. In 

fact, those who have come to the country through the legal channels are often some of the most vocal opponents of the illegal immigration and amnesty. It is my hope that as we move forward, we 

can keep these issues distinct. 

I would also be one of the first to point out that our Nation’s 

legal immigration system is flawed in many ways. For example, I 

am a strong opponent of the visa lottery program through which 

50,000 aliens are chosen at random to come and live permanently 

in the United States based on pure luck. This program threatens 

national security, results in the unfair administration of our Nation’s immigration laws, and encourages a cottage industry for 

fraudulent opportunists. 

In addition, it seems clear that our immigration laws do not sufficiently address the Nation’s needs in the area of highly skilled 

workers. I believe that U.S. businesses should have access to the 

best and brightest workers in the world. U.S. workers have consistently been the best and brightest, and we are working to ensure 

that the U.S. continues to produce the most talented high-tech and 

STEM graduates. However, highly skilled talent is not limited to 

the U.S., and our immigration laws should help U.S. businesses attract and retain the best and brightest global talent. 

Unfortunately, we have backlogs for processing green cards that 

are simply unacceptable. In addition, the laws have not seemed to 

keep up with the demand for highly skilled workers in our dynamic 

economy. When faced with the prospect of waiting for many, many 

years to get their green cards approved, it is ever more attractive 

3

for H-1B workers to leave the U.S. and go to other countries with 

more stable and predictable immigration laws. 

To address these problems, I have introduced legislation with 

Chairman Lofgren to relieve the backlog of green card issuance for 

current H-1B employees. Our legislation eliminates the per-country 

caps for highly skilled immigrants which will reduce the waiting 

time for those workers who have been waiting in line the longest. 

In addition, from this year on, our bill would recapture any unused green cards for highly skilled immigrants each year and add 

them to the cap for the next fiscal year. This provision will help 

ensure that Government red tape and bureaucratic delay do not 

prevent legal immigrants in the high-tech sector from obtaining 

their green cards, which will help to make America a more attractive place to come live and work. 

There are other proposals which have been introduced about 

which I have concerns. Instead of recapturing visas from this point 

forward, one proposal would reach far back into the past to recapture hundreds of thousands of visas. Such a proposal would surely 

bring with it new procedural problems as the Administration would 

likely struggle to handle the overwhelming new workload. We need 

to carefully consider the ramifications of such proposals. 

In addition, another piece of legislation would create a limitless 

number of green cards for foreign students who come to the U.S. 

and receive advanced degrees in math, science, and related fields. 

While granting U.S. businesses better access to this pool of applicants seems like a good idea, such a broadscale change needs careful consideration and review, including considering the effects that 

such a policy would have on the native U.S. labor pool. We would 

certainly not want to create a policy that has the effect of displacing our own talented U.S. workers at a time when our economy 

is struggling. 

Furthermore, most Members on my side of the aisle would like 

to couple any increase in legal immigration that benefits our economy and country with policy changes that would decrease the number of random green cards that are handed out through programs 

like the visa lottery which experts believe poses a national security 

threat. 

In summary, I would reiterate my strong desire for the majority 

to keep legal immigration issues separate from the issues of illegal 

immigration and amnesty. If we work together in a bipartisan fashion, I believe that we can achieve success in addressing many of 

our Nation’s legal immigration problems this Congress. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Goodlatte. 

I now would invite the Chairman of the full Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers, to give any opening statement he may have. 

Chairman CONYERS. Thank you, Chairwoman Lofgren, and to all 

of my fellow Members of the Judiciary Committee. 

This is very important. It is also so fundamental. It is almost a 

little shocking that we have now figured out that we are going to 

give green cards to our graduates so that we can fill up this horrible vacuum that is going on, and I guess, you know, better late 

than never. I do not see what took so long to get here. 

4

I talk irregularly with the heads of the engineering departments 

and the school of nursing at Wayne State University, and we have 

a horrendous problem developing. First of all, in nursing, the young 

ones are not staying. The experienced ones are retiring, quitting. 

We have a tremendous problem. 

And at least a half-dozen Members of this Committee are on H.R. 

676, the Universal Single-Payer Health Care bill, that we have 

been working on, and that anticipates that we will need lots more 

nurses and lots more schools and lots more people trained and able 

to teach nursing. 

Now that is the crisis right now. So we figured out that you have 

to start looking at dealing with that now, and I am proud of what 

SEIU is doing with the nurses, but this is just a mere beginning. 

This is just starting off with this problem. We have to look at this 

with a far more urgent attitude because we have to deal with these 

and deal with it fast. 

So I want to commend Chairwoman Lofgren and our Ranking 

Member Goodlatte and all of us here for working on this problem. 

It is a big one, and so I am just hopeful that we will begin to look 

at what is the holdup. We have to build more nursing schools and 

get more experts in to train, to teach in those skills, and we have 

to do it fast. 

So I am proud to be in on this modest STEM step forward, but 

there is a whole deeper layer of complex issues to be resolved, and 

I am glad it is here that we are looking at them in the Immigration 

Committee. 

I thank you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Conyers. 

I would recognize the Ranking Member of the full Committee, 

Mr. Smith, for any statement he may have. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I do have an opening statement. 

Is this mic on? 

Ms. LOFGREN. Yes. They are all live all the time. 

Mr. SMITH. Okay. Thank you. 

Madam Chair, the first thing I want to say is I am always impressed by Chairman Conyers’ knowledge of so many subjects, and 

he just finished mentioning nurses, and I happen to agree with 

what he said about the nursing shortage and the need for additional nurses, and, of course, that also emphasizes again the need 

to admit people who have the skills and the education we need, 

and nurses are a prime example of that. 

While the U.S. grants permanent residence to over one million 

legal immigrants each year, only 5 percent are actually chosen 

based upon the skills and education they bring to the American 

economy. The vast majority of immigrants are selected because of 

their family relationships with U.S. citizens and permanent residents or even at random, as Mr. Goodlatte described a minute ago. 

This does not make sense in today’s economy. 

First, the economy’s thirst for highly skilled and educated workers has increased dramatically, yet the economy’s preference for the 

more highly educated and skilled is ignored by our immigration 

system. Second, the much anticipated retirement of the baby boom 

5

generation is now upon us. In order to sustain a strong economy, 

we must replace these workers. 

So what type of immigrant should we be looking to attract? As 

the Congressional Research Service notes, industries such as leisure and hospitality that are known for having young low-skilled 

workforces will not need to fill many jobs as a result of the baby 

boom retirements. Rather, other occupations and industries will 

need large numbers of skilled and educated workers. Suitable replacements are more likely to come from immigrants selected for 

their skills and education than from ones selected at random or 

through family relationships, yet this fact is ignored by our immigration system. 

To borrow a line from Harvard economist George Borjas, ‘‘Skilled 

immigrants earn more, pay higher taxes, and require fewer social 

services than less skilled immigrants.’’ This is verified by the National Research Council which found that each immigrant with 

more than a high school education provides a net fiscal benefit to 

American taxpayers of $105,000 over their lifetime. On the other 

hand, each immigrant with less than a high school education imposes a net fiscal burden of $89,000 on taxpayers. It is clear that 

American taxpayers benefit from highly skilled and educated immigrants, but not from low-skilled and uneducated immigrants, yet 

this is ignored again by our immigration system. 

Despite these facts, 95 percent of legal immigrants to the United 

States are not admitted based on their skills and education. So 

what is the result? Hundreds of thousands of new immigrants 

without a high school education arrive each year. This has a devastating impact on the wages and job opportunities of disadvantaged, native-born Americans. 

In 2003, there were 8.8 million unemployed native-born adults 

without a high school diploma—1.3 million who were unemployed 

and 6.8 million no longer even in the labor force. Native-born 

Americans comprise 68 percent of all workers employed in occupations requiring no more than a high school education. These are 

some of the Americans competing with low-skilled and uneducated 

immigrants for jobs. 

Immigration is already having a depressing effect on the standard of living of vulnerable American workers. Steve Camarota at 

the Center for Immigration Studies has estimated that immigration has reduced the wages of an average native-born worker in a 

low-skilled occupation by 12 percent a year, or almost $2,000. Mr. 

Borjas estimates that immigration in recent decades has reduced 

the wages of native-born workers without a high school degree by 

7.4 percent. 

Congress should have revised our immigration policy long ago. 

Given the current state of the economy and the ever-increasing retirement of baby boomers, we can no longer wait any longer. Congress has a responsibility to promote immigration policies that protect the American worker and promote a strong American economy. 

To do that, we must prioritize the immigration of high-skilled and 

educated individuals. 

I thank you, Madam Chair, and I will yield back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

6

And in the interest of proceeding to our witnesses and mindful 

of the schedule, other Members’ opening statements will be made 

a part of the record, without objection. 

Today, we will hear from two panels of witnesses to help us consider the important issues before us. 

It is my pleasure first to introduce Edward Sweeney. Mr. 

Sweeney is a senior vice president in worldwide human resources 

at National Semiconductor Corporation, and he is the Chair of the 

Semiconductor Industry Association’s semiconductor workforce 

strategy committee. He returned to National Semiconductor in May 

of 2002 after serving as vice president of worldwide human resources at Vitria Technology, Incorporated. 

Prior to that, Mr. Sweeney was vice president of human resources at Candescent Technologies Corporation, a manufacturer of 

flat-panel displays. From 1983 to 1998, Mr. Sweeney served as a 

vice president of human resources for National Semiconductor’s 

central manufacturing technology group and also for the company’s 

analog products group. He also directly supported National’s worldwide sales and marketing organization and the company’s manufacturing facility in Greenock, Scotland. 

Mr. Sweeney has a bachelor’s degree in organization behavior 

and a master’s degree in human resources and organization development both from the University of San Francisco, and he is from 

my neck of the woods. 

So glad to have you here today. 

Next, I would like to introduce Lee Colby. Mr. Colby is an electrical engineer who has 50 years of experience in the high-tech 

field. After a 36-year career with Hewlett-Packard, Mr. Colby 

helped found his own technology company, O’LE Communications, 

and now runs his own consulting firm, Lee Colby & Associates. 

As the past chair of the Santa Clara Valley Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Mr. Colby represented 

over 13,000 technology engineers in the Silicon Valley area, my 

home. He is speaking to us today as an engineer, a business owner, 

and a manager with decades of experience with the high-tech 

world. 

Next, I am pleased to welcome John Pearson. Mr. Pearson was 

born in Manchester, England, and first came to the United States 

in the summer of 1969. Beginning in the early 1960’s after completing degrees in American studies at the University of Wales and 

University of London, Mr. Pearson studied and then worked at the 

University of Tennessee from 1971 to 1985. 

He has been working at Stanford University, again my neck of 

the woods, since 1985 and has been director of the Bechtel International Center since 1988. His work at Stanford focuses both on 

services to foreign students and scholars and to U.S. students applying for such scholarships as Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Gates, and Luce. 

Next, I would like to introduce Dr. Yongjie Yang who is a current 

post-doctoral research fellow in the neurology department of Johns 

Hopkins University. Dr. Yang came to the United States for graduate study in 2000 and was awarded his Ph.D. in neuroscience and 

genetics from Iowa State University in 2005. 

7

Dr. Yang’s current studies focus on the interaction of neuron and 

astrocyte interaction and their dysfunction in neurodegenerative 

diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and in 

particular ALS, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He has personal 

experience with the U.S. immigration system. 

And, finally, I would like to introduce Mark Krikorian. Mr. 

Krikorian is the executive director of the Center for Immigration 

Studies, a research organization here in Washington, DC, that examines the impact of immigration on the United States. Mr. 

Krikorian has published articles in The Washington Post, The New 

York Times, and the National Review, among other publications. 

He holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of Law and 

Diplomacy and a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University 

and is the minority’s witness at today’s hearing. 

Your written testimony will be made part of our official record. 

We would ask that your oral testimony consume about 5 minutes, 

and that little light on the table will tell you when your time is up. 

When the yellow light goes on, it means you have just 1 minute 

to go. When the red light goes on, it means you have actually been 

speaking for 5 minutes. It always surprises me. We do not have a 

heavy gavel here, but, at that point, we would like you to wrap up 

so that we can have an opportunity to hear the second panel and 

also to ask questions. 

So, Mr. Sweeney, if we could begin with you. 

TESTIMONY OF EDWARD SWEENEY, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, 

WORLDWIDE HUMAN RESOURCES, NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION 

Mr. SWEENEY. Good morning. My name is Eddie Sweeney, and 

I am the Senior Vice President, Worldwide Human Resources, at 

National Semiconductor Corporation and the Chair of the Semiconductor Industry Association workforce strategy committee. Today, I 

am pleased to testify on behalf of the Semiconductor Industry Association. The SIA represents the semiconductor U.S. industry, which 

employs 216,000 U.S. employees and is America’s second largest 

exporter. 

Today, I would like to cover three key points: the important role 

the foreign nationals play in the success of our companies, the 

problems created by the current U.S. immigration policy, and the 

joint positions that the SIA has taken with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers USA. 

Let me first note that the SIA believes that high-skilled immigration reform is part of a broader set of policies needed to promote 

innovation in America. We believe that we must also increase Federal support for basic research, enact true innovation tax policies, 

such as a permanent R&D tax credit, and improve science, engineering, and math education at the K-12 level. 

With this context in my mind, let me cover my first key point, 

the importance of foreign nationals to our companies. Semiconductor components are the most complex products manufactured on 

the planet with millions, and in some cases billions, of circuits integrated on slivers of silicon the size of your fingernail. To design 

these devices, we need to hire the brightest minds from our Nation’s universities. 

8

Each year, about half of our total recruitment activity comes 

from university hiring. However, when we go on campus, we find 

that 51 percent of the engineering master’s graduates and 71 percent of the engineering Ph.D. graduates are foreign nationals. 

Let me repeat these numbers because this is the crux of our 

issue. More than one in two of every master’s engineering graduate 

in a U.S. school is a foreign national, and almost three out of every 

four Ph.D. graduates are foreign nationals. 

This brings me to my second point: the problem that is created 

by our U.S. immigration policy. As the Committee well knows, the 

annual allotment of H-1B visas is filled within days, if not hours, 

after the DHS accepts applications and then decides by lottery who 

can best contribute to our economy. What is not so well known are 

the problems created by the caps on permanent resident visas or 

green cards. 

SIA companies seek green cards for almost all of our H-1B hires, 

so the caps are a major problem for us. We are not talking about 

large numbers. In 2007, the entire semiconductor industry sought 

green cards for less than 4,000 employees. Although relatively few 

in number, these employees are nonetheless critical to the design 

of our new products, to helping customers adopt semiconductors in 

their end systems, and to researching the next generation of semiconductor technology, and these are all tasks that create additional 

jobs, high-paying jobs, in other parts of our companies, such as in 

sales, production, and administration. 

The green card quota cap has forced employees to wait for years 

for permanent residency during which time their ability to move 

within their company or to be promoted is restricted. Furthermore, 

during this period, their spouses may not work, and their home life 

is essentially put on hold. Needless to say, many individuals become frustrated and frequently seek alternatives, either with another employer or with the same employer overseas. 

Many U.S. companies are finding workaround solutions that 

often involve creating R&D locations in overseas locations, meaning 

that the downstream benefits of our U.S. higher education system 

are not accruing to the U.S. Rather than sending these scientists 

home into the arms of our foreign competitors, our employees are 

often finding themselves creating jobs for these people in their foreign subsidiaries when they could otherwise be employed in the 

U.S. 

Addressing this challenge brings me to my third point: the SIA’s 

work with the IEEE-USA. Our organizations’ differences on H-1B 

issues have been widely publicized, but we both agree that the current immigration system is broken. Last October, we arrived at a 

common position which is detailed in our written testimony. It includes raising the green card cap with an exemption for master’s 

and Ph.D.s in science and engineering and allowing science and engineering graduates to transition directly from student visas to 

green cards. 

In May, the SIA and IEEE-USA followed up its letter on longterm reforms with specific support for H.R. 5882, 5921, and 6039. 

These three bills will help talented foreign nationals create jobs in 

America and help our industry to export products and not jobs. 

9

The SIA and IEEE-USA worked hard to find common ground, 

and we urge Congress to similarly work in a bipartisan basis to 

pass these important bills this year. This matter is of urgent and 

critical importance to our industry. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sweeney follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD SWEENEY


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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

All the bells are telling us that we have actually five votes on 

the floor of the House, so that is going to interrupt our hearing. 

But perhaps we can get one more witness statement in before we 

adjourn to the floor. We will be gone probably for about 40 minutes, is my guess, with apologies, but we have to go. 

So, Mr. Colby, if we could hear from you now, and then we will 

come back and hear from the others. 

STATEMENT OF LEE COLBY, ELECTRICAL ENGINEER, LEE 

COLBY & ASSOCIATES, PAST CHAIR OF THE INSTITUTE OF 

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS, SANTA CLARA 

VALLEY SECTION 

Mr. COLBY.0 Good morning, Congressman Lofgren. 

My name is Lee Colby, and I am testifying today on behalf of 

IEEE-USA, which represents a group of engineers 215,000 strong 

in the United States, of which 22 percent are foreign-born Americans. 

I have been a professional electrical engineer for over 50 years 

in Santa Clara Valley. In fact, I was in the Valley when it was 

called the Valley of Hearts Delight. For my first 36 years of my career, I worked at Hewlett-Packard as an electrical engineer. 

I left HP in 1997 and started Lee Colby and Associates which 

consults on circuit and system designs for some of the world’s leading technology firms. In 2000, I decided to try my hand in a technology startup, O’LE Communications, as chief technical officer. 

It was at O’LE that I had my most direct experience with our 

immigration system. We employed about 24 employees, half in Taiwan and half in the United States. During the dot.com boom, we 

had trouble finding American workers, so we turned to the H-1B 

program. When the dot.com boom burst, those workers were unable 

to transfer to another company and so had to leave. H-1B workers 

are effectively tied to their employer, creating a dependency that 

is both unjust and harmful. 

In 2005, I chaired, as Chairwoman Lofgren said, the IEEE Santa 

Clara Valley section, representing over 13,000 electrical and electronics engineers in the San Jose area. I also, though, volunteer as 

a math and science teacher assistant at the Sunnyvale Middle 

School and teach a class in fuel cells and solar cells for advanced 

high school children at San Jose State University. 

In other words, I know both ends of the technology sector inside 

and out. For almost 50 years, I have been deeply involved with cutting-edge technology and the men and women who developed it. I 

understand the problems faced by engineers and employers, and I 

believe the approach to high-skill immigration reform being offered 

by Chairman Lofgren is a good one for all parties. 

Earlier this year, the House Immigration Subcommittee, Chair 

Zoe Lofgren, and a bipartisan team of legislators introduced three 

important proposals. We support all three bills, as noted in the 

record. I am especially pleased to see that H.R. 6039 would allow 

graduate students to move quickly from a student visa to a green 

card. 

Remember it is not a question of whether the talented graduates 

of our schools get jobs but only where those jobs would be located, 

19

and if we force them to leave, the jobs created by the world’s most 

talented people will not be in our country, but rather in whatever 

nation had the foresight to accept them. 

Today, my neighborhood is filled with workers on H-1B visas. In 

the evening, while walking Heidi, my miniature schnauzer, they 

tell me what they will do once they become American citizens. They 

plan to start their own companies, create exciting and profitable 

new products—entirely new industries, in some cases. Why are we 

making them leave? 

On the plane coming over, I met James Stubbs, chief science officer of Cianna, a small 35-person medical company. They make a 

cutting-edge device for treating breast cancer. They employ two H1Bs. One is from Costa Rica and is in their advanced research 

R&D. The other is from India and does field research. Both of these 

H-1Bs are integral to the success of their company. Do you want 

the company to be successful for 6 years or 30 years? 

Temporary visas like H-1B do nothing to enhance America’s longterm competitiveness. They are a short-term fix that will weaken 

us in the long run. The H-1B visa is a great way to train our overseas competition but is an awful way to build our workforce. 

Innovative companies do not need innovative people for 6 years. 

They need them for 30. Moreover, H-1B visa engineers are easy to 

exploit, harming both American and foreign engineers. America 

does not need skilled temporary workers. We need skilled Americans, and citizenship requires at least an EB visa. 

In conclusion, IEEE-USA members share the belief that making 

foreign nationals with the knowledge, skills, and determination 

citizens has always served America’s best interests. We urge Congress to reform the Nation’s permanent employment-based admissions system. An integration policy based on the concept of green 

cards, not guest workers, will help America create jobs, maintain 

its technological competitiveness, and ensure our success. 

The goal of U.S. immigration policy should be to facilitate the 

entry of talented people, including potential inventors, innovators, 

and entrepreneurs from other countries. Congress should grant 

them legal permanent resident status and put them on a path to 

full-fledged American citizenship. 

Thanks, Congresswoman Lofgren and fellow Committee Members, for the opportunity to speak to you about the future of the 

United States of America. Congress, please pass the Lofgren bill. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Colby follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LEE COLBY

Thank you for inviting me to speak today. My name is Lee Colby and I am testifying today as a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersUnited States of America (IEEE-USA). The Institute of Electrical and Electronics 

Engineers (IEEE) is a multi-national professional/technical society made up of more 

than 375,000 individual electrical, electronics, computer and software engineers in 

150 countries. IEEE-USA promotes the professional careers and technology policy 

interests of IEEE’s 215,000 U.S. members, 22% of whom were born in other countries. 

I have been a professional electrical engineer in Silicon Valley for almost fifty 

years. In fact, I was in Silicon Valley when it was still known as the Valley of 

Hearts Delight. For the first 36 years of my career I worked as an electrical engineer for Hewlett-Packard. I left HP in 1997 and started Lee Colby and Associates 

20

which consults on circuit designs for some of the world’s leading technology firms. 

In 2000 I decided to try my hand in a technology start-up, O’LE Communications. 

It was at O’LE that I had my most direct experience with our immigration system. We employed about 24 employees, half in Taiwan and half in the U.S. During 

the dot.com boom, we had trouble finding American workers, so we turned to the 

H-1B program. When the dot.com boom burst, those workers were unable to transfer to another company and so had to leave. This is not uncommon. H-1B workers 

are, effectively, tied to their employer, creating a dependency that is both unjust 

and harmful. It would have been better if we could have hired all of our workers 

as permanent residents, but that is simply not a practical option, especially for 

small firms. 

In 2005, I served as Chair of IEEE’s Santa Clara Valley Section, representing 

over 13,000 electrical, electronics and computer engineers in the San Jose area. I 

also volunteer as a math and science teacher’s assistant at the Sunnyvale Middle 

School and teach a class on fuel and solar cells for advanced high school students 

at San Jose State during the summer. 

In other words, I know the technology sector inside and out. For almost 50 years 

I have been deeply involved with cutting edge technology and the men and women 

who developed it. I understand the problems faced by engineers and employers. And 

I believe the approach to high-skill immigration reform being offered by Chairwoman Lofgren is a good one for all of the parties involved. 

IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATION, INFRASTRUCTURE AND IMMIGRATION FOR US ECONOMIC

AND TECHNOLOGICAL COMPETITIVENESS

Continuing US economic and technological leadership in the 21st Century will depend in no small part on the nation’s ability to marshal the resources and the will 

to:

1) increase high quality educational opportunities for US students at all levels, 

especially in critical disciplines like math and science;

2) improve America’s high tech infrastructure, including its basic and applied 

research and development capabilities; and

3) enact immigration reforms that will give priority to the legal permanent admission of persons with the knowledge, skills and talents needed to sustain 

America’s unparalleled tradition of invention, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Balanced reforms in the nation’s legal permanent and temporary admissions programs are particularly important if U.S. employers and U.S. workers are to compete 

and succeed in an increasingly knowledge-based, technology-driven global economy. 

Instead of becoming more dependent on temporary non-immigrant visa programs, 

like the H-1B, IEEE-USA recommends that Congress make permanent immigrant 

admissions programs the preferred option for adding skilled and educated workers 

to our economy. 

To this end, IEEE-USA urges Congress to put aside longstanding partisan differences and take immediate steps to:

1) Increase the availability of permanent, employment-based (EB) visas and 

streamline the immigrant admissions (Green Card) process in order to make 

these visas the preferred path to legal permanent resident status and full 

citizenship for foreign professionals in STEM fields,

2) Allow foreign students who earn advanced degrees in STEM fields from U.S. 

colleges and universities to transition directly from temporary student visas 

to legal permanent resident (Green Card) status,

3) Reform the H-1B temporary work visa program to ensure that U.S. and foreign workers are treated fairly by requiring all participating employers to 

make good faith efforts to recruit U.S. workers, to use the H-1B program to 

augment, not replace American workers and to pay H-1B workers fair, market-based wages, and

4) Expedite visa processing for trusted short-term visitors, including foreign 

professionals who come periodically to attend conferences and meetings, to 

teach, or to conduct research in the United States. 

TWO LOFGREN BILLS ADDRESS PERMANENT EMPLOYMENT-BASED ADMISSIONS

Earlier this year, House Immigration Subcommittee Chair Zoe Lofgren and a bipartisan team of like-minded legislators introduced three important permanent immigrant admissions reform proposals. Two of these bills make simple, easy to implement reforms that will reduce the waiting times that talented people—and their 

21

prospective employers—must currently endure before they can be admitted permanently to live and work in the United States.

• HR 5882 will help to reduce the backlog for highly skilled admissions by recapturing an estimated 220,000 employment-based Green Cards that were 

not issued between 1992 and 2007 due to bureaucratic inefficiencies.

• HR 5921 will further reduce administrative backlogs and waiting times by 

eliminating per country limits on employment-based admissions from high demand countries like India, the Philippines and Mexico. If the U.S. needs to 

add skilled workers to our economy, and I think we do, why do we care which 

countries they come from?

I believe there are at least two additional reforms that Congress should consider 

to further increase the availability of immigrant visas for foreign-born high tech professionals. 

One would be to raise the statutory admissions ceiling on permanent employmentbased visas. The current 140,000 annual limit is unduly restrictive and should be 

expanded. 

Another would be to exclude spouses and minor children from the annual cap. 

Such a step would free up as many as 60,000 additional employment-based visas 

per year for the exclusive use of principals, including high tech professionals. 

THIRD LOFGREN BILL ADDRESSES HIGH TECH TALENT RETENTION PROBLEMS

Representative Lofgren’s third proposal—and an identical bill, S. 3084, recently 

introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH)—addresses 

a growing high tech talent retention problem that adversely affects many U.S. businesses, educational institutions and government agencies. 

HR 6039 will exempt foreign nationals with advanced degrees in STEM fields 

from U.S. educational institutions from the limits on permanent employment-based 

admissions. If enacted, this reform will enable foreign students with U.S. graduate 

degrees in technology-based disciplines to get Green Cards upon completion of their 

studies rather than having to return to their home countries or remain here for as 

long as a decade on a temporary (non-immigrant) visa until a Green Card becomes 

available. 

Graduates from American schools are among the most sought after employees in 

the world. This is especially true of students who receive Masters and PhD degrees 

in STEM fields. America has already invested in these students’ education. The students speak English, have lived here for several years and, to qualify for an employment-based visa, have a job. It is in America’s interest and Americans’ interest that 

we allow them to put their talents and education to work here. 

Remember, it is not a question of whether the talented graduates of our schools 

will get jobs, only of where these jobs will be located. If we force them to leave, the 

jobs they create will not be in this country, but rather in whatever nation had the 

foresight to accept them. 

IEEE-USA and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)—two groups that 

have long been on opposite sides of the table on temporary work visa issues—have 

joined forces to promote prompt enactment of all three Lofgren proposals. Our two 

organizations are very encouraged by the possibility that Chairwoman Lofgren’s reform bills will help to shift the focus of the debate about high tech immigration 

away from the controversial H-1B program to immigration reform proposals on 

which America’s business organizations, educational institutions, labor unions and 

professional societies are more likely to agree. 

WHY IMMIGRATION IS BETTER THAN TEMPORARY VISAS

My beliefs on this subject have been informed by my 50 years as an electrical engineer and my deep involvement with the engineering community. During my service as Chair of IEEE’s Solid State Circuits Society Chapter in San Jose, 15% of our 

members, all highly trained engineers, were without jobs. I have had friends replaced by H-1B visa holders and had friends have their jobs moved overseas. I have 

seen companies, including my own, lose business opportunities because they could 

not find the right skilled people. I have also lost some of my best employees and 

friends when their H-1B visas expired, forcing them to leave the country. 

Today, my neighborhood is filled with workers on H-1B visas. While walking my 

miniature schnauzer in the evening, they tell me what they will do once they become American citizens. They plan to start their own companies, create wondrous 

(and profitable) new products, entirely new industries in some cases. What I would 

like to know is: Why are we making them wait, and making our country wait, before 

letting them fully contribute to our society? How is this in our country’s interest? 

22

The United States needs more skilled engineers and scientists. We need to educate more of our own students in these fields, but the United States does not have 

a monopoly on talent. There are hard working, innovative and smart people all over 

this planet, many of whom would apply their skills here, if given a chance. Congress 

needs to give them that chance. 

But how that opportunity is offered counts more than the offer itself. Temporary 

visas, like the H-1B, do little to enhance America’s long-term competitiveness. They 

are a short-term fix that will weaken us in the long-run. 

The H-1B visa is a great way to train our overseas competition, but it is an awful 

way to build our workforce. Innovative companies do not need innovative people for 

six years—they need them for thirty. Moreover, the subservient position H-1B visa 

place workers in makes them easy to exploit, harming both American and foreign 

engineers. 

America does not need skilled temporary workers. We need skilled Americans. 

And American citizenship requires an EB visa. 

CONCLUSION

IEEE-USA is convinced that welcoming foreign nationals with the knowledge, 

skills and determination needed to succeed and making them citizens has always 

served America’s best interests. Accordingly, we urge Congress to make needed reforms in the nation’s permanent, employment-based admissions system rather than 

simply raising the H-1B visa cap. We firmly believe that an immigration policy 

based on the concept of ‘‘Green Cards, Not Guest-workers’’ will do far more to help 

America create jobs, maintain its technological competitiveness, and ensure its economic and military security than continuing to rely on temporary admissions programs. 

The goal of U.S. immigration policy should be to facilitate the entry of talented 

people—including potential inventors, innovators and entrepreneurs from other 

countries. Congress should grant them legal permanent resident status and put 

them on a path to full-fledged American citizenship. 

Congress should pass the Lofgren EB reform bills.

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Colby. 

We are now going to adjourn to vote on the floor of the House. 

We will recess, and I think we will not be back before 12:15. Let’s 

say we will be back at 12:25, if at all possible. There is a cafeteria 

and coffee shop in the basement, if people want to get a cup of coffee, and we will see you, we hope, about 25 minutes after 12. 

[Recess.] 

Ms. LOFGREN. So the Subcommittee will come back to order, with 

apologies to all for the interruption. 

We are eager, however, to hear the rest of our witnesses as well 

as the second panel. I think we have a window of about an hour 

and a half before the next set of votes. 

So we will proceed promptly to Mr. Pearson. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN PEARSON, DIRECTOR OF THE BECHTEL 

INTERNATIONAL CENTER, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATORS 

Mr. PEARSON. Madam Chairwoman and distinguished Members 

of the Subcommittee, thank you very much for the opportunity to 

testify this morning in support of H.R. 6039. 

My name is John Pearson, and I am director of the Bechtel International Center at Stanford University. I am testifying today on behalf of my professional association, NAFSA, the Association of 

International Educators. NAFSA is the world’s largest professional 

association dedicated to the promotion and advancement of international education and exchange. I am also testifying with support 

from Stanford. 

23

My remarks today will focus on the broad challenges the United 

States now faces in attracting and retaining international students. 

Of specific interest, of course, is the current law capping the number of green cards issued annually, even to those who graduate 

from U.S. colleges and universities with higher degrees. 

The United States is in a global competition for international 

students and scholars. That may seem like an unremarkable statement, but often U.S. law and policy does not always reflect an understanding of this reality. 

Though the U.S. is renowned and still renowned for being home 

to the majority of the top colleges and universities in the world, the 

international student market is being transformed in this century. 

There are many new players in the game, acting much more purposefully and strategically than ever before. 

Competitor countries have implemented strategies for capturing 

a greater share of this market. Their governments are acting to 

create more streamlined visa and entry processes and more welcoming environments and are setting goals for international student recruitment. 

Our neighbor, Canada, recently changed its employment policy to 

allow international graduates to work for up to 3 years after graduation, and, in fact, Canada does recruit international students on 

our own campuses, including my own. They have visited Stanford 

three times in the last few years to talk to students about opportunities in Canada. 

At Stanford, we have been recently dealing with the homeland 

security extension on practical training for STEM students. A 

broader context is that France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and 

Canada have all made similar changes to the possibilities for international students remaining in those countries and working after 

graduation. 

New competitors will also enter the market for international students. Primary among them is the European higher education area 

which compromises the signatories to the Bologna Declaration. 

This goal is to create a seamless higher education system in Europe by 2010 with credits entirely transferrable among their higher 

education institutions and often instruction in English. The European Union is also considering a blue card, similar to our green 

card, to be more competitive for non-European talent. 

Other countries are recognizing the value of educating the next 

generation of leaders and attracting the world’s scientific, technological, and intellectual elite. U.S. immigration law and policy has 

not yet effectively been adapted to this era of globalization. My own 

institution has been witness to this, as we also offer services to hire 

foreign-born faculty and researchers. 

But even so, many of the best and the brightest around the world 

still wish to come here and study. We should welcome them by creating a clearer path to green card status for them that is not tied 

to these low caps on the green cards available annually. 

In a global job market, employers look for the talent they need 

wherever they can find it, and students and highly talented workers look for the places to study and work that offer them the most 

opportunity. This means the options for employment after graduaVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
24

tion are integral to attracting bright and talented international 

students. 

Employment prospects are often a part of their calculus in deciding where to study, work, and live. Not all students who arrive in 

the U.S. wish to remain. Some have commitments to their home 

country. But others discover their potential in the environment of 

U.S. higher education and their career and life goals are changed. 

Google, Hotmail, Yahoo are some examples in Stanford’s own backyard of former students who have remained in the United States. 

I do not think it is a secret that U.S. immigration law often 

makes it difficult for international students to work after graduating, even from the most prestigious U.S. higher education institutions. The annual H-1B cap lottery is reported internationally, 

highlighting that the entire annual allotment is depleted in a day 

or two. 

In conclusion, what better way to capture the world’s best and 

brightest who want to become part of our Nation than to make it 

easier for them to remain to contribute to American economic and 

scientific leadership after they graduate from U.S. universities? It 

is with these comments that I am delighted to support H.R. 6039. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pearson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JOHN PEARSON

Madam Chairwoman and distinguished Members of the subcommittee, thank you 

very much for the opportunity to testify this morning in support of H.R. 6039. My 

name is John Pearson and I am the Director of the Bechtel International Center 

at Stanford University. I am testifying today on behalf of my professional association, NAFSA: Association of International Educators. NAFSA is the world’s largest 

professional association dedicated to the promotion and advancement of international education and exchange, with over 10,000 members. Last month NAFSA 

had its 60th annual conference in Washington, DC, with over 9,000 attendees. I also 

testifying with support from my own institution 

My remarks today will focus on the challenges the United States now faces in attracting and retaining international students. Of specific interest today is the current law capping the number of green cards issued annually, even to those who 

graduate from U.S. colleges and universities with degrees. This limitation on the 

talent in high demand by our knowledge- and innovation-based economy will make 

it increasingly difficult to attract and retain these bright and talented students with 

every passing semester. 

I. A GLOBAL COMPETITION FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

The United States is in a global competition for international students and scholars. That may seem like an unremarkable statement, but U.S. law and policy do 

not always reflect an understanding of this new reality. Though the United States 

is renowned for being home to the majority of the top colleges and universities in 

the world, the international student market is being transformed in this century. 

There are many new players in the game, acting much more purposively and strategically than ever before. Consequently, the best and brightest from around the globe 

are now aggressively recruited, and are able to choose from more options than ever 

before. 

Competitor countries have implemented strategies for capturing a greater share 

of the market. The UK and Australia are the classic examples. Their governments 

are acting to create more streamlined visa and entry processes and more welcoming 

environments, and are setting increasingly aggressive goals for international student enrollment. Our neighbor, Canada, recently changed its employment policy to 

allow international graduates to work for up to three years after graduation. Canada recruits our international students on our campuses, including my own, highlighting Canada’s more liberal employment policies. That is not to say that our competitors don’t have their own problems—they do. But we are not acting as strategically to take advantage of their weaknesses as they are to take advantage of ours. 

25

New competitors have entered the market. Primary among them is the European 

Higher Education Area, which comprises the signatories to the Bologna Declaration, 

including the European Union and other European states. The goal is create a 

seamless higher education system by 2010, with credits entirely transferable among 

their higher education institutions. Potentially, all the European higher education 

systems will work together with free movement of students among them as a counterpart to the United States. The EU is also considering a ‘‘Blue Card’’ similar to 

our green card to be more competitive for non-European talent. 

Furthermore, countries once thought of as ‘‘sending countries’’ are building their 

indigenous higher education capacity and are encouraging students to stay home for 

their education so as not to lose them to the United States. China is engaged in 

a dramatic expansion and opening of its higher education system, and India is also 

emphasizing keeping its students home. 

II. GREEN CARDS FOR U.S. GRADUATES

Other countries are recognizing the value of educating the next generation of 

world leaders and attracting the world’s scientific, technological, and intellectual 

elite. U.S. immigration law and policy have not yet effectively been adapted to the 

era of globalization. My own institution is witness to this, but it is not alone. Even 

so, the best and the brightest still want to come here. We should welcome them by 

creating a clearer path to green card status for them that is not tied to unnecessarily low caps on the green cards available annually. 

In a global job market, employers look for the talent they need wherever they can 

find it, and students and highly talented workers look for the places to study and 

work that offer them the most opportunity. This means that options for employment 

after graduation are integral to attracting bright and talented international students. Employment prospects are now a part of their calculus in deciding of where 

to study, work, and live. Not all students who arrive to study in the U.S. wish to 

remain; some have commitments to their home country. But others discover their 

potential in the environment of U.S. higher education and their career and life goals 

are changed. 

It is no secret that U.S. immigration law makes it difficult for international students to work after graduating, even from the most prestigious U.S. higher education institutions. The annual H-1B cap lottery is reported internationally, highlighting that the entire annual allotment is depleted in a day or two. But the truth 

behind the overwhelming demand for H-1Bs is that many if not most of the applicants would rather be applying for a green card, but are unable to do so because 

of backlogs and delays. It is fair to say that many employers would also like to be 

able to make some of these students permanent employees sooner, rather than later. 

It does not make sense that in a global competition for highly educated and talented workers, we turn away the graduates from our colleges and universities. This 

is doubly true for those graduating with Master’s degrees and Ph.Ds. When they 

leave the United States, they go to work in other countries for companies that often 

directly compete with American companies. 

What better way to capture the world’s best and brightest who want to become 

part of our nation than to make it easier for them to remain to contribute to American economic and scientific leadership after they graduate from U.S. universities? 

Our ability to remain competitive and build our innovation- and knowledge-based 

economy requires that our laws reflect the reality of the global market for talent 

for international students and highly educated workers. Creating a clearer path to 

green card status for graduates from U.S. colleges and universities, in STEM subjects, would be a serious step in showing that we have a commitment to continuing 

to be the leader in international education and in industry. 

Madam Chairman, appended to my testimony is NAFSA’s 2006 report, Restoring 

U.S. Competitiveness for International Students and Scholars, which I ask to be included in the record. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify. I will be pleased to respond to 

questions.

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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Pearson. 

Dr. Yang, we would be delighted to hear from you. 

STATEMENT OF YONGJIE YANG,

LEGAL IMMIGRANT ASSOCIATION 

Mr. YANG. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and Congressman King and Members of the Committee. 

I want to first thank the representative, Congresswoman Zoe 

Lofgren, for giving this opportunity for me to testify here, and I 

would like to share my personal experience on permanent residence 

application with this panel, and along with other people’s testimony, I would like to draw attention for the America’s need to 

change the laws regarding the highly skilled immigrants. 

My name is Yongjie Yang. I was born in China and came here 

in 2000 when I was admitted to the neuroscience center genetics 

program in Iowa State University, and there I basically focused on 

the mechanisms for environmental toxin-induced nerve-cell degeneration, which is highly relevant to the Parkinson disease research. 

I was awarded Ph.D. degree in genetics and the neuroscience in 

2005. That same year, my wife also was awarded the master degree from also Iowa State University. 

Currently, I am now a research scientist in the department of 

neurology at Johns Hopkins University, and my current work also 

focuses on the pathogenic mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer disease, Parkinson’s disease, and 

amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. 

Our lab is one of the best leading labs in the research of this disease in the world. By better understanding the pathogenic mechanism for the disease, we hope to develop an effective 

neuroprotective strategy to cure or delay the progression of this 

disease. We hope to find the cure here. 

On a personal note, I married my wife while we were both at 

Iowa State University, and my wife also works at Johns Hopkins 

University as a specialist in Parkinson’s disease research. We have 

a U.S. citizen daughter who is about 4 year old, and we recently 

just bought a house in Ellicott City, Maryland. So we do plan to 

stay here long. 

I currently have an H-1B visa status, which will expire next 

year. Although I have filed my immigrant visa petition in May, 

2006, and got approved last year, February, but I have not received 

my green card yet because of the severe backlog of the employment-based visa numbers, and I do not know now because of the 

situation how long I have to wait before I can become the permanent resident and also become the U.S. citizen. 

I would like to emphasize the three major obstacles that the immigration status poses on my situation as well as other people’s. 

The first one is because of the unavailability of the green card, 

I am not available to apply for many Federal grants from National 

Institute of Sciences or from National Institute of Health or National Science Foundation and from other Federal agencies, although my research is very promising to identify the direct target 

to cure or delay the ALS. 

The second obstacle is because of the situation, not me, but some 

other people who share the similar background as me cannot work 

39

for the Federal agencies, such as FDA, NIH, or other Federal agencies, although they possess specialized skill that is very much needed for these agencies. 

The third obstacle, obviously, is the travel inconvenience. For example, last year, I had opportunity to go to London for international conference, which is very important in my field, but I 

could not go because if I go, I have to go back to China to re-apply 

for my H-1B stamp and then come back to Baltimore which will 

take months. So opportunity like this got wasted, and for my specific research, it is vital to have discussion to meet with colleagues 

to talk about the latest research progress, and that is also a problem to establish the long-term collaboration with your international 

colleagues. 

So, as I understand it, the whole point of the employment-based 

immigration system is to keep the brightest, the best of the foreign 

minds, people in this land, in this land of opportunities. However, 

we cannot become the U.S. citizen before we got the green card, the 

permanent residence. Because of all these problems, we cannot 

travel freely, we cannot apply for some Federal grants, we cannot 

apply jobs for the Federal agencies, even though we are doing very 

cutting-edge researches and developing important technologies and 

which might create new job opportunities for the U.S. 

The Legal Immigrant Association I represent was formed by scientists, engineers, and other professionals in the United States. 

Most of us received advanced degrees from United States academic 

institutions, and most of us are also from China, and we are doing 

the petitioning to let the Government know and the Congress know 

what we need to let our voice be heard. 

So, on behalf of the LIA, I want to thank the Congress, the Subcommittee, for giving this opportunity, and I urge you to pass the 

legislation that would benefit eventually America by recognizing 

that putting highly skilled, highly educated people like us directly 

on the path to U.S. citizenship, and this will eventually benefit the 

best interests of the United States. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Yang follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF YONGJIE YANG

Madam Chairwoman, Congressman King, Members of the Committee. Good morning. I am honored and grateful to share my experiences with this panel, and I hope 

that these will highlight America’s need to change the laws regarding high-skilled 

immigrants. 

My name is Yongjie Yang. I was born in China and have lived in the United 

States since 2000 when I entered the graduate program in neuroscience and genetics at Iowa State University. I was awarded a Ph.D. in 2005, the same year my wife 

got her Master’s, also from Iowa State, which is known throughout the world as a 

leading institution in my field. 

I am now a research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. I investigate pathogenic mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases. That is, I am helping 

to advance human knowledge about how certain kinds of diseases develop, including 

Alzheimer’s , Parkinson’s, and ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. 

Our lab is one of the leading labs in the research of Lou Gehrig’s disease in the 

world. All of these cruel and often fatal diseases have certain characteristics in common. Scientists all over the world work on understanding these common characteristics, noting similarities and differences, seeking to find effective therapies. 

We all hope to find a cure. 

40

On a personal note, I married my wife while we were both at Iowa State University. She is also a specialist in neurodegenerative diseases. We have a US citizen 

daughter and just bought a house in Ellicott City, Maryland. 

I have H-1B status, which will expire next year. My immigrant visa petition was 

approved more than a year ago, in February 2007. That means that the U.S. government formally recognized that my skills are needed in this country—but there will 

not be an immigration visa available for me until at least 2009, if not much later. 

In fact, no one knows when I will finally be allowed to get on the path to US citizenship. 

I need to emphasize the unnecessary obstacles my immigration status poses for 

the kind of vital research that I do. Let me explain—scientific research is collaborative. It thrives on free inquiry, debate and accountability. It doesn’t matter whether the field is chemistry or physics or medical, like mine: we scientists need to work 

with and respond to each other’s work to move forward. We need to talk and travel 

freely. And our work benefits humanity—we really can cure diseases now, provide 

effective therapies to relieve pain and suffering, in ways that weren’t possible just 

a few years ago. And there is always something better, even more effective, just beyond the edge of our knowledge. We seek that. 

As I understand it, the whole point of the employment-based immigration system 

is to turn highly-skilled foreigners into Americans, to keep talent in the land of opportunity. To do that, the system needs to keep us here. We cannot become US citizens until we have been legal permanent residents. We cannot travel freely; we cannot take many government jobs or receive many Federal grants, without the green 

card—even though we are often doing very promising research or developing cutting 

edge technologies which can have significant economic job-creating potential. It’s 

discouraging. 

Johns Hopkins wanted to pay for me to go to an international conference in London last year, the 8th European meeting to discuss glial cells in health and disease. 

These are a particular kind of cells in nervous systems vital to normal brain function. But in order to get the new visa that I would need to re-enter in H-1B status 

after traveling from Baltimore to Britain, on the way back I would have first had 

to travel to China and wait for my new visa to be issued. My work for a cutting 

edge American research facility regarding new discoveries in pathogenic mechanism’s research would have sent me to Europe, but the visa process required that 

I re-enter from China. The paperwork alone would have taken so long, I didn’t go. 

The Legal Immigrant Association was formed by scientists, engineers and other 

professionals in the United States. Most of Us are from China. We are learning how 

to be Americans. My story is not unique. One member of LIA is the database manager for clinical trials seeking a cure for cancer. He has also been approved for permanent residency—yet he still has only temporary permission to work in the US. 

Do we really want him to go back to China? He wants to stay here. Another member, in Texas, is an entrepreneur unable to raise money for a nano-technology business he would like to start, because even though he is eligible for a green card, 

there are none available. Do we want him to go back to China, to create those jobs 

there, when he wants to stay and create them here? 

LIA members with advanced degrees from American universities do cutting edge 

research in high-tech fields that can help cure diseases and solve problems, creating 

jobs for Americans in America—but the immigration system simply does not work 

in America’s interest. 

We know this from the inside. 

On behalf of LIA, I want to thank the Subcommittee for inviting me to testify, 

and I urge you to pass legislation that can benefit America by recognizing that putting highly skilled, highly educated people like us directly on the path to US citizenship is in America’s best interest. 

Thank you.

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Dr. Yang. 

And we will end with Mr. Krikorian. 

STATEMENT OF MARK KRIKORIAN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES 

Mr. KRIKORIAN. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for the opportunity to be the skunk at the garden party. 

The public is assured that employment-based immigration categories in our law is Einstein immigration. Even many of those 

41

concerned about the harmful impacts of low-skilled immigration 

often take for granted that higher skilled workers are needed. 

But like everything else in immigration policy, skills-based immigration is not what it seems. Once we peel away the misconceptions, we find that the highly skilled workers in question often 

really are not that highly skilled, and the need for them is really 

more an employer need for cheaper labor. 

First, a couple of numbers. Last year, 162,000 or so foreigners 

were granted legal permanent residence in the five employmentbased categories. More than half of them were in the third category, EB-3, which is for skilled workers and professionals, though 

a majority of those were really for family members, and this is the 

category that is at the center of the discussion about the supposed 

need for high-skilled workers. 

Research shows that, contrary to the claims of lobbyists, these 

workers are not necessarily the best and brightest. Dr. Norman 

Matloff, professor of computer science at UC-Davis, has found that 

there is no premium paid to foreign workers in science, technology, 

engineering, and mathematics whose employers are petitioning for 

green cards. In a market economy, if these foreign workers were indeed the outstanding talents we are told they are, they would be 

paid accordingly with wages far above the prevailing wage, and 

they are not. 

What is more, Dr. Matloff has found that the large majority of 

these foreign workers are hired in the two lowest levels of ability, 

according to the Labor Department’s classifications and thus unlikely to be contributing much to innovation. In fact, most of the 

large tech firms had only a handful of workers in the highest skill 

level category where the innovations are most likely to be found. 

As he summed up, ‘‘the vast majority of the foreign workers, including those at most major tech firms, are people of just ordinary 

talent doing ordinary work. They are not the innovators the industry lobbyists portray them to be,’’

And we see a similar situation looking at H-1B visas that are the 

supposedly temporary visas that serve as a stepping stone to much 

of employment-based immigration, with software expert John 

Miano finding the overwhelming majority of them are not highly 

skilled for their occupations and are paid well below the median for 

comparable American workers. 

So what should our skills-based immigration program look like? 

The first thing to keep in mind is that in today’s America ‘‘skilled’’ 

does not mean what it did a century ago in the Ellis Island era. 

Then a high school graduate anywhere in the United States was 

unusual and a college graduate was rare indeed. 

Today, with Americans having attained dramatically higher levels of education, any foreigner asking to be admitted based on exceptional skills would need to demonstrate even greater levels of 

accomplishment acquired abroad without subsidies from the American taxpayer, and every foreign student is subsidized to the tune 

of thousands of dollars by the taxpayer to justify admission. 

And another very important point is that the admission of large 

numbers of technical workers or other skilled workers would have 

a perverse long-term effect by decoupling American business from 

the fate of the American educational system, since companies could 

42

simply import their workers from abroad. Business is the country’s 

single most important interest group, and if it is true that American students are not being adequately trained for the technical 

jobs of tomorrow, mass skilled immigration actually frees American 

firms from the need to pressure lawmakers and schools for whatever educational reforms might be needed to address the problem. 

For instance, if hospitals and other firms had easy access to foreign nurses, for instance, then the incentive to build those new 

nursing skills and the other things that Congressman Conyers referred to is simply not there or is dramatically reduced. 

There is really no reason any employer should be permitted to 

make an end-run around our flexible dynamic labor force of 150 

million people unless the prospective immigrant in question has 

unique, remarkable abilities. One way to do that would be simply 

to give green cards to anybody who scores 140 on an English language IQ test. It certainly would be preferable than this H-1B business that Dr. Yang rightly criticized. 

Another way to do that, maybe a more practical way, would be 

to use the current system but limit it to the genuinely best and 

brightest category, EB1-1 and EB1-2. Those are the aliens of extraordinary ability and outstanding professors and researchers. 

Congress, in fact, in the legislative history of the immigration 

law specifically said, ‘‘that that visa is intended for the small percentage of individuals who have risen to the very top of their field 

of endeavor.’’. That is Einstein immigration, if you will, and those 

are the only foreign citizens who should be granted special immigration rights based on their skills. 

Last year, we gave about 11,000 green cards to people in that 

category, including family members, and, you know, we could easily 

cap that at 15,000 or not have any cap at all if the standards were 

high enough because, after all, if we are talking about the immigration of geniuses, how many geniuses really are there in the world? 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Krikorian follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK KRIKORIAN

‘‘Einstein immigration.’’

This is what Americans imagine our employment-based immigration categories to 

be. Even many of those concerned about the harmful impacts of low-skilled immigration into a modern society still often take for granted that higher-skilled workers 

are beneficial—hence the title of this oversight hearing, ‘‘The Need for Green Cards 

for Highly Skilled Workers.’’

But like everything else in immigration policy, skills- and employment-based immigration is not what it seems. Once we peel away the misconceptions, we find that 

the ‘‘highly skilled’’ workers in question aren’t really that highly skilled, and the 

‘‘need’’ for them has little to do with the national interest and much to do with firms 

seeking cheaper and more compliant workers. In fact, the employment-based immigration category with the highest standards, the category that really does select for 

the best and brightest around the world, is never fully used, precisely because there 

are so few people in the world who have such extraordinary abilities. 

First a few numbers. In FY 2007, 162,176 foreigners were granted legal permanent residence in the United States in the five employment-based categories. More 

than half of these—85,030—are in the third employment-based category, or EB-3, 

for skilled workers, professionals, and others, though a majority (48,275) of those 

green cards are actually for the spouses and children of such workers. It’s this category that is at the center of the discussion about the ‘‘need’’ for ‘‘highly skilled’’ 

workers. 

Research shows that, contrary to the claims of tech-industry lobbyists, these workers are not the best and brightest, the cream of the crop, the global elite of talent. 

43

Dr. Norman Matloff, a professor of computer science at the University of California, 

Davis, recently calculated the premium paid to foreign workers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics whose employers are petitioning for green 

cards. He did this by computing the ratio of their salaries to the prevailing wage 

for that occupation. In a market economy, if these foreign workers were indeed outstanding talents they would be paid accordingly, with wages far above the prevailing wage. 

They’re not. In his report (‘‘H-1Bs: Still Not the Best and the Brightest,’’ May 

2008, http://www.cis.org/articles/2008/back508.html), Dr. Matloff called the ratio the 

‘‘Talent Measure’’—the higher the number, the greater the premium employers were 

paying for the worker’s talents compared to the wage paid to other workers in the 

same field with comparable experience. Dr. Matloff found that the Talent Measure 

was at or near 1.0 for virtually all the professions and tech firms he studied—i.e., 

they are average workers in their fields. (By definition, the ratio cannot be lower 

than 1.0, since employers are barred law from paying below the prevailing wage.) 

He concluded that ‘‘the vast majority of the foreign workers—including those at 

most major tech firms—are people of just ordinary talent, doing ordinary work. 

They are not the innovators the industry lobbyists portray them to be.’’

What’s more, Dr. Matloff found that the large majority of these foreign workers 

are hired at the two lowest levels of ability, according to the Labor Department’s 

classification, and thus unlikely to be contributing much to innovation. In fact, most 

of the large tech firms had virtually no workers in the highest skill level, where 

innovators are most likely to be found, despite the fact that it is these very firms 

which argue that innovation depends on their ability to import foreign workers. 

And looking at H-1B visas, the ‘‘temporary’’ visas that serve as a stepping-stone 

to employment-based immigration, paints the same picture. Software expert John 

Miano has looked at the employer applications for H-1B workers, and found that 

the overwhelming majority are not highly skilled for their occupations and are paid 

well below the median for comparable American workers. And he concluded in ‘‘Low 

Salaries for Low Skills: Wages and Skill Levels for H-1B Computer Workers,’’ April 

2007, http://www.cis.org/articles/2007/back407.html:

The newly available data on skills suggest one of two things is happening, neither of which is consistent with the claims of employers pushing for the expansion of the program. Either the H-1B program is used primarily to import relatively less-skilled, entry-level, or trainee workers (and thus is of dubious value 

to the American economy), or employers are lying about these workers’ skills 

in order to suppress their wages.

In other words, unless tech companies are engaged in a massive conspiracy to lie 

to the government, the current skilled immigration flow is not made up mainly of 

Einsteins, but rather ordinary workers for their fields. 

So what should our skills-based immigration program look like? The first thing 

to keep in mind is that in today’s America ‘‘skilled’’ doesn’t mean what it did a century ago. Then, a high-school graduate was unusual, and a college graduate was 

rare indeed; in 1910, only 13 percent of American adults had graduated high school 

and fully one-quarter had no more than five years of schooling. At the same time, 

only 2.7 percent of Americans had college degrees. Today, with Americans having 

attainted dramatically higher levels of education, any foreigner asking to be admitted based on high skills would need to demonstrate even greater levels of accomplishment—acquired abroad, without subsidy from the American taxpayer—to justify admission. 

Also, the admission of large numbers of technical workers would have a perverse 

long-term effect—it would decouple American business from the American educational system, since companies could simply import workers from abroad. Business is the single most important lobbying group at the federal, state, and local 

level, and if it’s true that American students are not being adequately trained for 

the technical jobs of tomorrow, mass skilled immigration frees American firms from 

the need to pressure lawmakers and schools for whatever educational reforms might 

be needed to address this problem. 

Thus there’s no reason any employer should be permitted to make an end run 

around our vast continental labor force of more than 150 million people unless the 

prospective immigrant in question has unique, remarkable abilities, and would 

make an enormous contribution to the productive capacity of the nation. 

Perhaps the simplest way to approach this would be to admit anyone who scores 

above 140 on an English-language IQ test. A more likely approach would be to keep 

part of the current system, but limit skilled immigration to a portion of the first 

employment-based category (EB-1)—specifically, ‘‘aliens of extraordinary ability’’ 

and outstanding professors and researchers. Congress intended this to be the real 

44

cream-of-the-crop category, intended ‘‘for the small percentage of individuals who 

have risen to the very top of their field of endeavor.’’

(The EB-1 category also gives green cards to multinational executives or managers, people who are not necessarily, as anyone who reads the business pages 

knows, the best and the brightest.) 

These two groups—‘‘aliens of extraordinary ability’’ and outstanding professors 

and researchers - accounted for about 11,000 green cards last year (including 

spouses and children). This is the real Einstein immigration, and these are the only 

foreigners who should be granted permanent residence based on skills or employment. We could do without a numerical cap altogether, so long as standards for admission are set sufficiently high, but to prevent ‘‘bracket creep,’’ as it were, it might 

be best to cap such immigration at 15,000 per year. After all, how many geniuses 

are there in the world?

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Krikorian. 

And thank you to all of the witnesses. 

Now is the time when Members of the Committee can pose questions to our witnesses, and I will begin. 

First, let me thank all of you for this testimony. I am mindful 

that Mr. King mentioned that we have smart people who are here 

from Iowa, we have smart people here from Santa Clara County, 

and I am interested in exploring the role that highly educated individuals in the STEM field play in job development here in the 

United States. 

I talked to Mr. Lungren on the floor and he had a conflict because he thought we would be here just in the morning—hoping 

that I would explore the situation of Microsoft opening up a new 

research center in Vancouver and the whole issue of whether the 

individuals we are talking about, really Ph.D. and master levels, 

create new jobs as sort of team leaders and innovators or not. 

Can anyone address that? Maybe Mr. Sweeney. I mean, you have 

experience—substantial experience—in the technology industry. 

Mr. SWEENEY. I think that is a particularly important point. In 

the semiconductor industry where we have about 80,000 U.S. engineers, we apply for green cards for typically up to 4,000 per year, 

5 percent of our population. These people, although small in number, are crucial to manufacturing process research. 

These individuals create jobs by coming up with the next innovations of semiconductor technologies for products going into everything from cell phones, your Blackberry, to medical instrumentation, automotive instrumentation. In fact, it is well documented 

that semiconductor engineers’ productivity gains for the United 

States was one of the greatest factors over the last decade. 

Most of these scientists that we hire, these master’s and Ph.D. 

scientists that we hire, are not the cheap labor that my colleague 

referred to just a few minutes ago. These are master’s and Ph.D. 

students coming out of the best universities in the U.S. They are 

making north of $100,000 per year, and these are job-creating scientists. 

I will give you one particular example of a scientist that we had 

in our Texas factory. He was an Indian national with a master’s 

degree from the University of Texas-Arlington. He had been waiting for his green card for a period of about 6 years, and, of course, 

during that period, he is not permitted to be promoted or transferred. 

Most recently, we had a need in a research center, a corporate 

research center, in Santa Clara to work on some new manufacVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
45

turing processes that would create jobs in our factories in Maine 

and Texas. That individual selflessly gave up his place in the green 

card in the queue to come and work at our corporate headquarters, 

knowing that he would have to restart his whole permanent residency application. 

But he was so important to our company that we endorsed that 

and we supported him because he is going to create more jobs for 

us in our factories. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Colby, I wonder if I could ask you. As you 

pointed out, the IEEE and SIA have not always agreed, but you 

have come to an agreement on this. Can you tell me what brought 

you to this point? 

Mr. COLBY. I think that what brings us to this point is that we 

do need top talent from overseas. At this point, it is difficult to get 

enough engineers in the United States at this point to satisfactorily 

staff our R&D labs. It is somewhat pitiful that that is the case, but 

that is the way it has fallen out, and that is the reason that a lot 

of these companies, including my own when I was involved with 

the startup, we just could not get people come in the door for a 

good salary, again over $100K—this was in 2001—and it is just difficult to get people to be thinking along the lines of being an engineer or something like that in the United States. 

In my school, when I work in the volunteer school, the children 

will come up to me and say, ‘‘Why would you want to be an engineer?’’ and I do not really understand what has happened in the 

United States, but somehow we have to correct that. In this interim period, we definitely need talent from overseas so we can correct this situation. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Can I ask maybe Mr. Pearson? You are at Stanford, my alma mater. Certainly, I know the Bechtel Center well. I 

really felt that if you have someone like Dr. Yang who is maybe 

going to find a cure to Alzheimer’s—I hope so—it is not an alternative. You want to educate more American students, but you also 

do not want to send Dr. Yang someplace else. You know, we want 

to invent the stuff here. Do you see those in conflict, that if we 

could educate more American students, then you would want to 

send Dr. Yang home? 

Mr. PEARSON. No, I do not. I do not see that in conflict. If you 

would look at the data, I think it has been from the late 1970’s that 

about 40 percent of all master’s and doctoral students in the STEM 

fields have been from overseas. I think you can do both. Graduate 

programs at Stanford and at many institutions—Iowa State I do 

not think would be any exception—tend to invite people to those 

programs who they consider are the best, and if they are from 

Napa Valley or China, I actually do not think they look at that. 

We have had at Stanford in the last few years a number of people like Dr. Yang who have had similar struggles in waiting for 

green cards. We did a few years ago lose one person who moved 

back to Europe because of that. The others did work out but after 

many years of frustration and consultation with immigration attorneys. 

Higher education also made the claim a number of years ago 

with the H-1 changes when we were not charged the training fee 

that, in fact, universities are trainers of young talent, and I would 

46

suspect that Dr. Yang would be a classic example of somebody from 

overseas who would not only contribute to better understanding 

with diseases, but would also be a good teacher and a good educator. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

I can see that my time has expired. 

So I am going to turn to Mr. Gutierrez for whatever questions 

that he may have. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman. 

Fifty-one percent of the master’s degree students are foreign nationals; 71 percent of Ph.D.s, electrical engineers. They are called 

urgent and critical and important to the industry, and I just have 

a comment on the testimony. 

One could come away from this hearing and decide that if you 

are educated and you have a master’s degree, you are welcome and 

the Congress will act to bring you and your family together and 

give you permanent residency, and if you want to remain here after 

you get your Ph.D. and your doctorate’s degree, then stay. There 

is a way for you. 

If you are a farm worker who comes here under our current system, the H-2A program, then you come only temporarily without 

family, with the only expectation that after a few years to return 

to your home and never stay in the United States of America. 

I think that is part of the dilemma that I have with all of this, 

is should the Congress be acting for those who have Ph.D.s and 

master’s degrees who come here on student visas to our country to 

become educated, to have their master’s and probably have a relatively good future somewhere else, but who I would love to have 

them stay here. 

For the record, I think we should fix the system. I think we 

should give the high-tech industry the innovators that they need 

and that they should be able to remain here. My point is not that, 

not that I am against you. I am for you. 

Expand on it then to say how do we do that at the same time 

we have farm workers in pesticide-ridden fields earning low wages 

and say to them, ‘‘You are not really smart. You are not really very 

educated,’’ but who I could state are just as critical and relevant 

to the innovation of that industry as the Ph.D. and master degree 

students are to the high-tech industry. 

So, yes, let’s work on this, but I think let’s work on it on a holistic approach so that we can truly be proud from a historical point 

of view about what we do to reform our immigration system so that 

the most vulnerable among us, the most vulnerable immigrant 

among us, is not somehow stigmatized by actions of the Congress 

to say, ‘‘These will go forward.’’

I think there are people who are going to be against increasing 

because they do not care what kind of immigrant it is. You know, 

one immigrant is one immigrant too many in this country. And so 

we are going to have to deal with that, but I think the vast majority of the American people understand that immigration is good for 

our country, that we need the high-tech industry, that we need people in all kinds of industry where maybe there are not the relevant 

workers and the relevant skills as we work as Americans to create 

those opportunities for our own children. 

47

So I guess that is just my basic point. If someone would like to 

comment, I would be happy to yield the time to any one of the participants. 

Mr. SWEENEY. Congressman Gutierrez, thank you for your comments. 

I would say that the Semiconductor Industry Association has 

been supportive generally of an overhaul of our entire immigration 

process because we see many flaws, but I would also say that our 

industry association is dealing with the day-to-day criticalities of 

the loss of job-creating talent in our country. 

Every day that passes, we see more and more people who have 

been waiting in a permanent residency queue leaving our shores to 

go back to their own location where they are creating jobs to compete against us. This is just a travesty after we have invested so 

much effort in theses scientists, these highly talented individuals 

in our country. 

I would say that one of the other things the semiconductor industry feels is that despite the need for a comprehensive view of this, 

we feel that there is an urgent requirement to address this highskilled immigration problem immediately. I will say, however——

Mr. GUTIERREZ. That clock is on yellow. 

I agree with you. I want to address it. Try to put what you just 

said in the context of someone who is an American citizen, and 

there are millions of American citizen children whose parents are 

on the threat of deportation today, whose parents have already 

been deported and have been separated from them. 

Put yourself in a meat-packing plant in Pottsville, Iowa, where 

you have been indicted for working with false documentation, basically working undocumented, and the prosecutor asks for a 5-year 

sentence. When you put that in juxtaposition to your critical area, 

that is—I am just trying to stress to you, you know, we are all in 

this together. I want to help, but the most—how would I say it—

vulnerable among us must be responded to, I think, if we are going 

to be of justice and of fairness. 

I thank you, Mr. Sweeney, and I hope to work with you and all 

of you. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez. 

I now turn to Mr. King for his 5 minutes of questions. 

Mr. KING. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I want to thank all the witnesses. 

Just with regard to the Pottsville, Iowa, raids, there were 383 

that were arrested for document fraud, and 300 pled guilty. They 

received 5-month sentences and 3 years of supervisory release. 

There were 83 that were released for humanitarian reasons because they had dependent children or one reason or another. So I 

do not accept the idea that ICE is insensitive to families and their 

needs. 

I think, though, that what we are dealing with here is that we 

want bright people to come into the United States legally, and I 

have for a long time said my mantra on immigration has been and 

will remain we need to craft an immigration policy that is designed 

to enhance the economic, the cultural, and the social wellbeing of 

the United States of America. Call it selfish, if you will, but any 

nation would set that kind of a policy. 

48

And so when we get to the point of what type of people does this 

country need, we are not in great disagreement, myself and Madam 

Chair from California, on the merit of highly skilled immigrations. 

But where I draw a line in a disagreement is that I do not believe 

we can have unlimited immigration. I do not think we can have unlimited immigration in any of our categories. I think a smart nation will set that policy and set a cap, an overall cap, and a cap 

in each of the visa categories. 

At this point, I am not going to call it a partisan position because 

we have people on both sides of all these issues across the aisle, 

but it is predominantly over on my side of the aisle that there has 

to be an overall limit and a hard cap. 

Now we legally brought in about 1.3 million last year, and I continually hear the complaints that the lines are long. That is because this is a good place to come, and we can have short lines if 

we broaden them out and bring more people in. If we would bring 

them in as fast as they had applied, we would not have any lines. 

We have them because there are more people that want to come 

to the United States than we actually process and get here under 

the laws that we have today. 

So my view is this, that between 89 and 93 percent of the legal 

immigration in the United States is not based upon merit. It is 

based upon familial, family reunification policies, and so if we are 

only in real control of merit of 7 to 11 percent of our legal immigration, that is not much control to try to build a brain trust in the 

United States. 

I appreciate especially it has to be Dr. Yang, if I read the memo 

correctly, instead of Mr. Yang, and the education that you received 

in the path that you are following. I have another concern, and 

that is if we continue to educate in the United States bright people 

and send them out of America, at some point, they have created 

the universities in the other countries and taken our brain trust 

and exported it. They will not need us to educate their young people anymore, they will be educating them there, and they will have 

surpassed our brain trust here. 

So I am interested in keeping the brains here. I appreciate Mr. 

Krikorian’s testimony, though, because I think it lends a balance 

to this. And we left you out of the brain trust compliments of the 

other four witnesses, so I want to add they come from other places 

as well, bright people, Mr. Krikorian. 

So I think I will go first to Mr. Krikorian. The statement that 

you made that the wages are at 1.0, which is the statutory wage 

applied for those skills, if there is not deviation from that, then statistically the exceptions would simply be anomalies then, and I 

would like to ask you to expand upon that a little bit. If 1.0 is the 

pay scale, that is what the law says, you cannot pay less. If you 

pay more, that would be an indicator of highly skilled. The study 

says no. 

Mr. KRIKORIAN. Yes. I mean, it would essentially be the premium 

above the prevailing wage that is being paid, and so it cannot be 

any less, and it is essentially, you know, a slight amount more. 

There are variations. The report on our Web site is variations between firms and industries, but, basically, for most firms, most industries, it is only the slightest bit above the floor, basically. 

49

You know, a premium, as far as I would understand it, would be 

a significantly higher wage. I mean, I am just picking 20 percent 

out of the air, but something like that or more would be the kind 

of thing that you would pay to somebody who was an outstanding 

talent that you were attempting to draw in and pay, you know, accordingly. 

Mr. KING. Let me also say also that I have had the privilege of 

seatmates flying back and forth of some of the young immigrant 

doctors that are doing research work for us, being paid about 

$50,000 a year and, it occurs to me, trapped in a green card or in 

a non-green card avenue, you are not in a position to negotiate for 

a higher wage. 

The longer we can drag out your slow walk toward citizenship, 

Dr. Yang, the less we would be paying you for the work you are 

doing. Would that be a fair analysis? 

Mr. YANG. Well——

Mr. KING. I am not saying that is the right thing. I just simply 

ask if it is the real thing. 

Mr. YANG. You mean people like me get a lower payment? 

Mr. KING. Yes. 

Mr. YANG. Well, I think that is probably not the truth. My own 

case is, for example, my salary probably is the highest in our department because the salary basically goes by your merit, like your 

excellence. If you are good at it, then basically your department 

will like to pay more to keep you there to conduct the nice research. 

Of course, it is relevant to how much money you can bring into 

the department, how many grants you can get for the department. 

So there are a lot of practical issues, too, but, basically, I think in 

my own case is that being the highest payment, not the lowest payment, I think. 

Mr. KING. Just as a follow up on that, Dr. Yang, but where you 

are doing research now, if you got a better offer from, say, Stanford, are you free to travel and take that job? Are you limited? 

Mr. YANG. No, I am somewhat limited. For example, I have to 

get letter Stanford to apply for a new H-1 for me, and after I receive that H-1, then I can transfer from Johns Hopkins to Stanford. 

But before I get that, I cannot really move to anywhere else. 

Mr. KING. Okay. Then just to conclude that point, say if Mr. 

Krikorian were doing research right next to you and he is an American citizen and you are not, if he gets the call from Stanford and 

you are of equal skills, then isn’t it a lot easier for Mr. Krikorian 

to negotiate for a higher salary and show up the next day and go 

to work for Stanford? 

Mr. YANG. Well——

Mr. KING. You are worth more if you can travel. That is my 

point. 

Mr. YANG. Right. Well, I think the point is basically for the employer to consider his skills. If, for example, Mr. Krikorian has the 

same skill as what I have, then probably go to him because he is 

a U.S. citizen, I think, but if I have a better skill, especially some 

special skills that I possess, but he does not, probably the employer 

will prefer me rather than him, I think. 

50

In the scientific field, it is not purely 100 percent, but majority 

will base on the skill or your background, your expertise, not by, 

you know, who you are which comes——

Mr. KING. The red light indicates you are still a Cyclone fan. I 

yield back to the Chair. 

Mr. YANG. Yes, I am. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. King. 

And I will just—we do have another panel—thank you for your 

testimony today. 

I would just note that, you know, sometimes I think there is a 

false distinction made. Well, maybe that is an overstatement, but 

I look at Silicon Valley, and Jerry Yang grew up in East San Jose, 

but he was not admitted because of his Ph.D., because of his mind. 

He came as a child. Sergey Brin who founded Google—he was not 

admitted because of his education. He was admitted as a child. His 

parents were professors. Andy Grove, I mean, founded Intel. He 

was not admitted because of his education. He was a refugee. 

So, you know, you never know where the talent is going to come. 

Certainly, somebody like you, Dr. Yang, we want to keep, and I am 

hopeful that we can move forward on some of these measures, the 

Lofgren-Sensenbrenner bill would recapture the visas that were 

meant to have been issued, the Lofgren-Goodlatte bill would eliminate the per-country limits on the employment side, and the 

Lofgren-Cannon bill which would address the STEM issue that we 

have talked about today. 

I hope that we can move forward in a collegial and hopefully bipartisan way to do some variation of those bills in this Congress, 

and I know Mr. Gutierrez had another commitment, but he is absolutely right. We have to do something about the other elements of 

our flawed immigration system. What is happening, in my judgment, to individuals—I mean, when we have our salad, we have to 

thank the people who are and really living in a state of fear 

today—is not acceptable and has to be changed. 

With that, I will thank you all and invite the next panel to come 

forward. 

We have our second panel, and I will introduce them as they are 

coming forward so we are not interrupted by our votes. 

I am pleased to welcome Dr. Jana Stonestreet. Dr. Stonestreet 

has been a registered nurse for 32 years and a nursing executive 

for over 17 years exclusively with an acute care hospital. She has 

worked as a health system chief nurse at the University of Texas 

Medical Branch at Galveston, Methodist Health Care System in 

San Antonio, and she is currently chief nursing executive for the 

Baptist Health System in San Antonio, Texas. 

Dr. Stonestreet received a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Kent 

Street University, a master’s degree in nursing from the University 

of Texas, and her Ph.D. in nursing from Texas Women’s University. 

She has been certified in critical care nursing and administration. 

She has published articles on the subjects of leadership, strategic 

planning, and retention of staff nurses and nurse managers. 

Next, I would like to introduce Cheryl Peterson. Ms. Peterson is 

a senior policy fellow in the department of nursing practice and 

policy at the American Nurses Association. She is responsible for 

51

policy development on issues relating to the nursing workforce and 

nursing workforce planning for the future. 

Since coming to the ANA in 1990, Ms. Peterson has developed 

expertise in several areas, including issues related to labor, employment, trade and immigration, and policy development on the 

supply of and demand for nursing services. She has a bachelor’s of 

science in nursing from the University of Cincinnati and a master’s 

of science degree in nursing from Georgetown University. 

And, finally, I would like to introduce Steve Francy, who is the 

executive director of RNs Working Together. RNs Working Together is a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions representing over 

200,000 registered nurses and is America’s largest organization of 

working registered nurses. Mr. Francy received his BS and his MS 

in political economy from the Colorado State University and his 

juris doctorate from the University of Denver. 

As with our first panel, your complete written statements will be 

made part of our official record. We would ask that your oral testimony take about 5 minutes, and when the red light is on, it means 

your time is up. 

So if we can go to you first, Ms. Stonestreet. 

TESTIMONY OF JANA STONESTREET, CHIEF NURSING 

EXECUTIVE, BAPTIST HEALTH SYSTEM 

Ms. STONESTREET. Thank you very much. 

Madam Chair Lofgren and Committee Members, I thank you for 

the opportunity to appear today to discuss the nursing shortage, 

particularly as it relates to green cards and the recruitment of foreign-educated nurses. 

My name is Jana Stonestreet. I am chief nursing executive for 

the Baptist Health Care System in San Antonio, Texas. Baptist is 

the leading provider of health care in San Antonio and South 

Texas, and I welcome the opportunity really to tell you our story. 

Our hospital has more than 1,700 licensed beds and serves patients through five facilities, six emergency departments, and outpatient services. We also operate a school of health professions 

with a history of educating nurses and allied health professionals 

for more than 100 years. 

As chief nursing executive for Baptist, I have responsibility for 

providing quality nursing care to all of the patients who come to 

us. This requires the recruitment and retention of an adequate 

number of qualified nurses. 

Currently, our hospitals have 236 unfilled RN positions. We anticipate needing 136 more RNs in the next 12 months. This vacancy rate exists in spite of a 6.1 percent improvement in our nurse 

turnover for a rate of just under 20 percent for our nursing turnover. 

The inability to fill RN positions has an adverse effect on our 

ability to care for patients, and it prevents us from expanding 

needed services to our community. It also forces our hospitals to divert EMS and at times cancel elective procedures. 

The nursing shortage is at a critical level and is expected to get 

worse. The U.S. Department of Labor says that 1.2 million new and 

replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. The Department of 

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Health and Human Services expects the national nursing shortage 

to grow to more than one million nurses by 2020. 

The causes of the nursing shortage are complex. They include a 

shortage of nurse educators, including lack of clinical sites and 

classrooms for educating our nurses, an aging workforce, and an increased demand for RNs both inside and outside of the hospital setting. 

Baptist’s overall strategy is to keep all RN pipelines flowing to 

our hospitals. We have a school of nursing that has graduated over 

3,300 RNs since its inception in 1903, and since 2004, we have 

been able to triple our graduates to 126 in 2007. 

The recruitment strategies we use run the spectrum of those reported in the literature and reported as best practices, including 

job fairs, direct mailings, community events, and continuing education programs for our nurses. We have developed and maintained 

a reputation for excellence in nursing practice, which is vital to recruitment. 

The development of a positive work environment through implementation of shared governance enables staff nurses to truly share 

in decision making related to professional practice in the work environment. Our own staff have become our best recruiters. 

To help us fill our patient needs, Baptist has recruited wellqualified foreign-educated nurses. Two-and-a-half years ago, we 

interviewed and selected 88 qualified nurses from the Philippines. 

Most have met the requirements for admission to the United 

States, including passage of the licensing exam and visa screen. A 

lack of green cards has resulted in at least a 1-year additional 

delay for 80 of these nurses who otherwise could be available to our 

patients today. But even with these 80 nurses, our hospitals would 

still have 150 vacancies. 

Foreign graduates account for about 15 percent of new nurses 

that are licensed to practice in the United States each year. Any 

interruption of their availability has an immediate and detrimental 

effect on health care, making an already difficult situation worse. 

I understand that foreign nurses face delays of more than 2 years 

in gaining entry into this country. 

As of July 1, their waiting time will grow even longer because 

no green cards will be available. Over the past 3 years, the delay 

has reached as high as 5 years. Without congressional action, this 

situation will only get worse. 

Although significant nurse recruitment initiatives have been 

adopted at the local, regional, State, and national levels, they cannot overcome a shortage of this magnitude. America’s hospitals 

must be able to take advantage of all available options to meet this 

critical need. 

When local solutions fail to address the workforce challenges, 

hospitals must be able to have the option to recruit qualified foreign nurses to provide care to our patients. On this point, legislation recently introduced by Representative Robert Wexler, H.R. 

5924, the Emergency Nurse Supply Relief Act, will help us address 

our immediate need for nurses. The bill would set aside 20,000 

green cards per year for highly qualified foreign-educated nurses 

for 3 years. It would also help bolster our domestic supply by establishing a program to help U.S. nursing education programs. 

53

Immigration is not the permanent solution to our nursing shortage, increased domestic supply is, but dramatically increasing our 

domestic training and retention takes time, and our patients need 

nurses now. So we must keep a reasonable supply of qualified immigrant nurses in the meantime. 

As a person who has spent my entire professional life caring for 

patients, much of it in roles responsible for staffing, my goal has 

always been to give our patients the very best possible care, but 

we cannot accomplish that goal without nurses. Please help us 

meet our patients’ needs and that of our communities by passing 

H.R. 5924. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Stonestreet follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANA STONESTREET


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Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Dr. Stonestreet. 

Ms. Peterson? 

STATEMENT OF CHERYL A. PETERSON, SENIOR POLICY 

FELLOW, AMERICAN NURSES ASSOCIATION 

Ms. PETERSON. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of 

the Subcommittee. 

I am Cheryl Peterson, a registered nurse and senior policy fellow 

at the American Nurses Association. 

ANA appreciates the opportunity to testify on behalf of the global 

profession of nursing and the Nation’s 2.9 million registered 

nurses. ANA is also the U.S. member of the International Council 

of Nurses. ICN and its 128 member countries work together to ensure quality nursing care for all and the presence worldwide of a 

respected nursing profession and a competent and satisfied nursing 

workforce. 

I have been a registered nurse for 28 years. During my 13 years 

in health care policy development, I have witnessed many attempts 

to address domestic nursing workforce problems through immigration. ANA’s position on this issue has not wavered. ANA supports 

the mobility of individual nurses. However, we oppose the use of 

immigration to solve America’s nursing workforce shortages. 

It is inappropriate to look overseas for nursing workforce relief 

when the real problem is the fact that Congress does not provide 

sufficient funding for schools of nursing, the health care industry 

has failed to maintain a work environment that retains experienced nurses, and the Government has not engaged in active planning to build a sustainable health workforce. The recruitment of 

educated nurses from developing countries deprives their home 

countries of highly skilled health care practitioners upon whose 

knowledge and talent their citizens heavily rely. 

We are now almost 10 years into another critical nursing shortage that is impacting all aspects of health care delivery. Yet, in 

2007, baccalaureate nursing programs turned away over 36,000 

qualified applicants, and in 2005-2006, over 88,000 qualified applicants were turned away from all types of basic nursing education 

programs. 

Retention of the current nursing workforce also continues to be 

problematic. Consistently high turnover rates and dissatisfaction 

with the current work environment complicate efforts to address 

the nursing shortage. A study reported in the Journal of Nursing 

Administration showed that 43 percent of experienced nurses score 

abnormally high on indicators of job burnout. A 2007 

PricewaterhouseCooper’s study reported that 27 percent of new 

nursing graduates leave their first job within a year. 

ANA conducted an online survey on working conditions, attracting more than 10,000 respondents. Fifty percent of the respondents 

are considering leaving their current job, and a quarter are considering leaving the profession altogether. More than 50 percent stated that they believe that the quality of nursing care on their unit 

had declined over the last year and that more than 48 percent 

would not feel confident having a loved one receive care where they 

work. 

62

It is disheartening to be here contemplating large-scale nurse immigration yet again when we have failed to implement longstanding recommendations to address the shortage. In addition, 

there are serious ethical questions about recruiting nurses from 

other countries when there is a worldwide shortage of nurses. 

According to the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, 

from 1990 top 2000, nurse recruitment shifted toward low-income 

countries and those with a low supply of nurses. The very real 

problem caused by mass immigration of nurses out of developing 

countries prompted the World Health Organization to adopt a resolution urging member states to address the negative impact of migration on health systems. 

Similarly, the ICN stated that it condemns the practice of recruiting nurses to countries where authorities have failed to implement sound human resource planning and to seriously address 

problems which cause nurses to leave the profession and discourage them from returning to nursing. 

The time has come to invest in long-term solutions. I urge you 

to fully fund domestic nursing education. Due to lack of funding, 

last year, the Federal Government was forced to turn away more 

than 93 percent of applicants to a loan repayment program and 

more than 96 percent of the applicants to a scholarship program. 

ANA also urges you to support the Nurse Education, Expansion, 

and Development Act. This legislation would provide flexible funding to schools of nursing to help them increase their capacity to 

educate new nurses. 

Finally, we challenge our partners in the health services community to work with us to improve nurse retention. This shortage will 

not be truly resolved until the work environment supports experienced nurses. 

In the end, ANA is concerned that the influx of foreign-educated 

nurses only serves to further delay debate and action on serious 

nursing education and workplace issues. We look forward to working with you and our industry partners to create an environment 

conducive to high-quality nursing care. ANA appreciates the Subcommittee’s discussions on this issue, and we plan to continue to 

work with you to seek a solution that meets the needs of America’s 

citizens, nurses, and our global colleagues. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Peterson follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHERYL A. PETERSON

Good morning Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittee, I am Cheryl Peterson, MSN, RN, Senior Policy Fellow at the American Nurses Association. I am 

pleased to be here today representing the American Nurses Association (ANA) in 

recognition of your efforts to address the employment-based immigration system for 

highly-skilled professionals including registered nurses (RNs). ANA is the only fullservice association representing the interest of the nation’s RNs through its 54 constituent member nurse associations. 

I have been a registered nurse for 28 years. During my 13 years of work in health 

care policy, I have been witness to many attempts to address domestic nursing 

workforce problems through immigration. ANA’s position on this issue has not 

wavered. ANA supports the ability of individual nurses to choose to practice in the 

location of their choice. However, we oppose the use of immigration to solve America’s nursing workforce shortages. 

ANA maintains that it is inappropriate to look overseas for nursing workforce relief when the real problem is the fact that Congress does not provide sufficient fundVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00066 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
63

ing for domestic schools of nursing, the U.S. health care industry has failed to maintain a work environment that retains experienced U.S. nurses in patient care, and 

the U.S. government does not engage in active health workforce planning to build 

a sustainable nursing and health professions workforce for the future. Over-reliance 

on foreign-educated nurses by the health care industry serves only to postpone efforts to address the needs of nursing students and the U.S. nursing workforce. In 

addition, there are serious ethical questions about recruiting nurses from other 

countries when there is a world-wide shortage of nurses. The recruitment of educated nurses from developing nations deprives their home countries of highly-skilled 

health care practitioners upon whose knowledge and talents their citizens heavily 

rely. 

DOMESTIC NURSE RECRUITMENT

As this Subcommittee is aware, we are now almost ten years into a critical nursing shortage that is impacting all aspects of healthcare delivery. With an estimated 

2.9 million RNs, the profession is the largest workforce component of our healthcare 

system. Nurses provide care in virtually all locations in which health services are 

delivered. Thus, the worsening shortage poses a serious challenge to the domestic 

healthcare system. 

While this shortage is alarming, it is heartening that many Americans are interested in pursuing nursing as a career. The American Association of Colleges of 

Nursing reports that enrollment in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs increased by 5.4 percent from 2006 to 2007. The National League for Nursing’s 2005–

2006 survey of all pre-licensure nursing education programs (associate degree, baccalaureate degree, and diploma programs) documented a 5 percent rise in admissions across all RN programs. More good news is that once students enroll in nursing programs, they tend to remain there and graduate to enter the workforce. Overall graduation rates grew by 8.5 percent during 2005–06; at the same time, nine 

out of every 10 bachelor’s nursing degree candidates enrolled in 2005 remained enrolled or completed her/his nursing degree by 2006, compared with a retention rate 

of 72 percent at four-year undergraduate institutions nationwide. 

The bad news is that even this growth in capacity is failing to meet the demand 

for domestic nurse education. According to the American Association of Colleges of 

Nursing, schools of nursing turned away 36,400 qualified applicants to baccalaureate programs in academic year 2007. The National League for Nursing’s (NLN) 

2005–2006 study revealed that 88,000 qualified applications were denied due to lack 

of capacity in all three types of basic nursing programs. Baccalaureate degree programs turned away 20 percent of applications, while associate degree programs 

turned away 32.7 percent. In fact, one to two year waiting lists to get into domestic 

nursing programs are now commonplace. 

NURSE RETENTION

Consistently high turnover rates and dissatisfaction with the current work environment also continue to complicate efforts to address the nursing shortage. Experienced nurses are reporting high levels of burn out, turnover among new nurses is 

very high, and large numbers of nurses are leaving the profession outright. A study 

reported in last month’s Journal of Nursing Administration shows that 43 percent 

of experienced nurses score abnormally high on indicators of job burnout. In a study 

released last year, the Price Waterhouse Cooper’s Health Research Institute reported that 27 percent of new nursing graduates leave their first jobs within a year. 

These studies are consistent with many others taken over the last two decades. 

In an effort to ascertain the extent and cause of nurse discontent, ANA recently 

conducted an on-line survey of nurses across the nation. More than 10,000 nurses 

took the opportunity to express their opinions about their working conditions. Results from the survey, revealed on May 21, show that more than 50 percent of 

nurses are considering leaving their current job, and that nearly a quarter of all 

nurses are considering leaving the profession altogether. Sixty percent reported that 

they knew nurses on their unit who had left due to concerns about working conditions. It should concern all of us that the majority of nurses involved in this survey 

believe that the poor working conditions in their facility are harming patient care. 

More than 50 percent of the respondents stated that they believe that the quality 

of nursing care on their unit had declined over the last year, and that more than 

48 percent would not feel confident having someone close to them receive care in 

the facility where they work. 

Years of discontent with the work environment have led us to a situation in which 

an alarming number of our experienced RNs have chosen to leave the profession. 

The 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses conducted by the DepartVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00067 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
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ment of Health and Human Services shows that a large number of nurses (488,000 

nurses—nearly 17 percent of the nurse workforce) who have active licenses are no 

longer working in nursing. Numerically speaking, if these nurses were to re-enter 

the workforce today, the current shortage would be solved. 

IMMIGRATION

The ANA opposes the use of immigration as a means to address the growing nursing shortage. As you are well aware, immigration is the standard ‘‘answer’’ proposed 

by employers who have difficulty attracting domestic nurses to work in their facilities. It is disheartening to be here contemplating large-scale nurse immigration yet 

again, when we have been down this road many times before without success. 

In addition to the impact of nurse immigration on the domestic workforce, there 

are serious ethical questions about recruiting nurses from other countries when 

there is a world-wide shortage of nurses. According to the Leonard Davis Institute 

of Health Economics, the source countries for foreign-educated nurses shifted toward 

low-income countries and those with a low supply of nurses during the period of 

1990 to 2000. This same report notes that almost 20% of the world’s nursing population is in the United States, including half of all English speaking professional 

nurses. 

While the Philippine government’s policy is to export professional labor, including 

nurses, the Philippine health care system has been strained by the rapid exodus of 

nurses. Philippine experts estimated that about 120,000 nurses had left the Philippines last year alone. An estimated 50,000 RNs left the Philippines between 2000 

and 2005, but nursing schools managed to produce only 33,370 nurses over the same 

period. Press reports state that the resulting ‘‘brain drain’’ has pushed the Philippine health care system to the brink. 

The very real problems caused by mass emigration of nurses out of the developing 

world have caused international health associations to condemn current practices. 

In 2004, concerns about the impact of health care worker migration on countries origin prompted the World Health Organization to adopt a resolution urging member 

states to develop strategies to mitigate the adverse effects of migration of health 

personnel and minimize its negative impact on health systems. These same concerns 

prompted the International Council of Nurses to revisit the issue of nurse migration. 

Last year the ICN issued a position statement reaffirming the fact that the ‘‘ICN 

condemns the practice of recruiting nurses to countries where authorities have 

failed to implement sound human resource planning and to seriously address problems which cause nurses to leave the profession and discourage them from returning 

to nursing.’’

In addition, ANA is concerned that immigrant nurses are too often exploited because employers know that fears of retaliation will keep them from speaking up. For 

instance, last year 27 nurses from the Philippines walked off their jobs in New York 

citing years of maltreatment by their employers and misrepresentations by their recruiters. Their complaints are very similar to those that I have heard made by literally hundreds of other immigrants. They were promised that they would be employed as RNs, but were made to work as lesser-paid staff; they were made to work 

unreasonable hours; they were not paid overtime. In the end, when these nurses 

walked off the job due to concerns about the quality of care being provided in their 

facilities, their employers brought criminal suits against them. While the majority 

of these suits have been dismissed, the legal entanglements that these nurses were 

forced to endure stands as a stark warning to other immigrants. 

ANA is pleased to have been part of the AcademyHealth’s efforts to develop a Voluntary Code of Ethical Conduct for the Recruitment of Foreign Educated Nurses to 

the United States. This Code reflects a significant consensus building process that 

has resulted in a document that can guide efforts to reduce potential harms and increase benefits experienced by the U.S., the foreign-educated nurse, and potentially 

by the source countries. Stakeholders at the table included professional associations, 

hospital facilities, international recruiters, unions and academia. The next step is 

to establish a monitoring mechanism by which signatory companies and organizations can be held accountable. 

REAL SOLUTIONS

ANA concurs with our colleagues at the American Hospital Association that the 

nursing shortage is a real concern that requires urgent action. We also agree that 

nurse immigration is a short-term ‘‘band aide’’ approach to fixing the problem. ANA 

urges you to look beyond this eternal band aide and to support real long-term solutions to the ongoing nursing shortage. 

65

To begin with, I urge you to make a real investment in domestic nursing education. It is extremely short-sited to look overseas for RNs when more than 80,000 

qualified students are being turned away from domestic programs every year. There 

are two programs already up and running at the Department of Health and Human 

Services that could make a real difference today. The Nurse Education Loan Repayment Program repays up to 85 percent of outstanding student loans for RNs who 

work full-time in a health care facility deemed to have a critical shortage of nurses. 

Similarly, the Nursing Scholarship Program covers the educational costs of nursing 

students who agree to work in shortage facilities. Both of these programs hold the 

promise of recruiting students into the nursing profession and to directing domestic 

nurses into facilities with the greatest need. Unfortunately, no real investment has 

been made in these programs. In fact, last year, the Health Resources and Services 

Administration was forced to turn away more than 93 percent of the applicants to 

the loan repayment program and more than 96 percent of the applicants to the 

scholarship program. In real numbers, this means that more than 9,000 RNs interested in working is the very facilities that are here today requesting an increase 

in nurse immigration were turned away from these programs due to lack of funding. 

Clearly, it is time to invest in nursing students 

In addition, ANA urges you to support the Nurse Education, Expansion, and Development (NEED) Act of 2007 (S. 446, H.R. 772). This legislation would provide 

flexible funding to domestic schools of nursing to help them increase their capacity 

to educate new nurses. Funding would be contingent on these schools increasing capacity, and on graduating students capable of passing the licensure exam required 

to become registered nurses. The NEED programs are necessary to allow our schools 

to address the myriad of problems they encounter when attempting to expand enrollment, the most notable of these currently being the nursing faculty shortage. 

In addition to supporting domestic nurse education and recruitment, we challenge 

our partners in the hospital community to work with us to improve nurse retention. 

This shortage will not be truly solved until the environment of care supports the 

maintenance of experienced nurses in patient care. As long as nurses are driven 

away by hostile work environments, as long as the new nurse turn-over rate hovers 

around 25 percent per year, we will not have adequately addressed the root causes 

of this shortage. 

I am happy to report that nurses, in conjunction with health care facilities, are 

finding the means to combat this dissatisfaction. Real positive changes that make 

real results are underway in the nation’s Magnet Hospitals. The American Nurses 

Credentialing Center’s Magnet Recognition Program(r) identifies health care facilities that have fostered an environment that attracts and retains competent nurses 

through its respect for the values, art, and science of nursing. The Magnet designation was first granted to a group of hospitals that were able to successfully recruit 

and retain professional nurses during a national nursing shortage in the early 

1980’s. To this day, Magnet facilities outperform their peers in recruiting and retaining nurses. In fact, the average length of employment among registered nurses 

on staff is roughly twice that of non-Magnet hospitals. Most importantly, patients 

in Magnet facilities experience better outcomes and higher satisfaction with their 

health care. 

Currently, 289 health-care organizations in 45 states have been designated as 

Magnet facilities; including 14 facilities and systems in California, and six in Iowa. 

The Magnet Recognition Program(r) has been cited in reports by the American Hospital Association, the Joint Commission and others as an example of an innovative 

program that enhances recruitment and retention of nurses at the facility level. I 

believe that is it irresponsible for any facility to seek to solve their nurse staffing 

problems through immigration before they have done the internal work needed to 

improve retention. We know what works, and it mainly boils down to respect for 

the knowledge and needs of staff nurses, and an investment in quality patient care 

CONCLUSION

In the end, ANA is concerned that the influx of foreign-educated nurses only 

serves to further delay debate and action on the serious workplace issues that continue to drive American nurses away from the profession. In the 1980’s a Presidential task force called to investigate the last major nursing shortage developed a 

list of recommendations. These 16 recommendations, released in December, 1988, 

are still very relevant today—they include issues such as the need to adopt innovative nurse staffing patterns, the need to collect better data about the economic contribution that nurses make to employing organizations, the need for nurse participation in the governance and administration of health care facilities, and the need for 

increased scholarships and loan repayment programs for nursing students. Perhaps 

66

if these recommendations were implemented we would not be here today. Certainly, 

we will be here in the future if they are ignored. 

ANA maintains the current nursing shortage will remain and likely worsen if the 

glaring needs of schools of nursing are ignored and if challenges in the workplace 

are not immediately addressed. Registered nurses, hospital administrators, other 

health care providers, health system planners, and consumers must come together 

in a meaningful way to create a system that supports quality patient care and all 

health care providers. We must begin by improving the environment for nursing. 

ANA looks forward to working with you and our industry partners to make the 

current health care environment conducive to high quality nursing care. We appreciate the ongoing work and continued negotiations that the Subcommittee is engaged in on this issue and hope to continue to work with you to seek a solution that 

meets the needs of America’s nursing workforce and our global colleagues. The resulting stable nursing workforce will support better health care for all Americans.

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much. 

And our last witness is Mr. Francy. 

STATEMENT OF STEVEN FRANCY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

RNS WORKING TOGETHER, AFL-CIO 

Mr. FRANCY. Yes. My name is Steve Francy. I am the executive 

director for RNs Working Together. 

I want to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on 

the issue of whether the expansion of work visas to foreign nurses 

is an appropriate solution to the nursing shortage that our Nation 

faces. 

First, a little bit about the organization RNs Working Together: 

We are a coalition of 10 AFL-CIO unions who represent over 

200,000 working registered nurses. Each affiliate union has two of 

its nurse leaders who serve on my leadership committee. We are 

a democratic organization and operate by building mutual agreement among our Members regarding issues that concern registered 

nurses. 

First of all, the continuing shortage of registered nurses is a 

problem that virtually everyone acknowledges. If you were to walk 

the halls of American hospitals and ask a nurse what is the number one problem she or he faced, they would probably say, ‘‘We do 

not have enough staff to deliver quality care.’’

While we appreciate everyone’s efforts in trying to address this 

crisis, we do not believe that relying upon thousands of additional 

foreign nurses to deliver health care in the United States is an appropriate solution to the nursing shortage. 

There are many factors that contribute to the nursing shortage. 

Two of the major factors that I would like to draw your attention 

to today is our inability to train enough Americans to become registered nurses and the difficult working conditions that nurses face. 

To resolve these and other factors that contribute to the nursing 

shortage will require a focused, comprehensive strategy. 

First, we do not have the capacity to train enough nurses. Last 

year alone, approximately 150,000 qualified applicants for nursing 

schools were turned away because there were not enough seats 

available. Our inability to train these applicants is due to a shortage of RN faculty who are often paid less than practicing nurses. 

Congress needs to pass legislation that will increase the capacity 

of nursing schools to train nurses. This would include incentives to 

attract nurse faculty as well as to actively recruit and provide fiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00070 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
67

nancial assistance to those Americans who would like to become 

nurses. 

In addition, it is estimated there are about 2.9 million licensed 

RNs in the United States, but only 2.4 million are providing care 

to patients. Hundreds of thousands of licensed nurses have left the 

bedside in favor of the many other job options now available from 

outpatient care, computer jobs, pharmaceutical jobs, or leaving 

nursing entirely. 

A key reason for this migration away from the bedside is that 

chronic understaffing and unmanageable workloads are a day-today reality. While increasing the number of visas may seem like an 

easy solution, in reality, it does nothing to retain nurses that are 

already trained, skilled professionals. 

Stopping this leakage of nurses will require Congress to direct 

their attention to this issue and pass legislation that will directly 

improve working conditions. Examples include prohibiting mandatory overtime, passing minimum staffing ratios, and safe patient 

care to reduce injuries of nurses. 

We are confident by taking these steps, many of those nurses 

who have left the profession and are now thinking about leaving 

the profession will come back and care for America’s sick. 

As you know, America is not the only country facing a nursing 

shortage. Indeed, there is a worldwide shortage of registered 

nurses. Thus, the use of immigration policies that allegedly benefit 

one country in the short run can be devastating to a developing 

country’s ability to deliver health care to their citizens. 

Some countries have even a greater shortage of nurses, and any 

loss of the nurses they have trained can undermine their government’s efforts to staff their own hospitals and clinics. In 1 year 

alone, Ghana lost more than 500 nurses, more than double the 

number of its new graduates. In the Philippines, not only are they 

losing more nurses than graduate from nursing school, now even 

doctors—some doctors—are training to become nurses in the hope 

that they will find employment in the United States. In Zimbabwe, 

it has been estimated that the nurse-to-patient ratio is one nurse 

to every 700 patients. 

Obviously, nurses in developing countries will find coming to 

America for a job very attractive because of the increase in their 

income, but expanding nurse visas simply outsources nurse training to developing countries and robs them of many of the nurses 

they have trained. 

In sum, taking nurses from poor countries will have a small 

short-run impact on the U. S. while increasing the short-and longterm misery of poor and developing countries. 

Again, I understand that increasing the number of work visas 

seems like an easy solution. However, we believe that developing 

a comprehensive long-term strategy that addresses the factors contributing to the nurse shortage in our country, such as increasing 

our capacity to educate new nurses and improving working conditions, is a more productive use of time and resources and is the 

only real way in which America can solve this long-term issue. 

Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony regarding 

this important and difficult issue. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Francy follows:]

68

PREPARED STATEMENT OF STEVEN FRANCY

My name is Steven Francy and I am the Executive Director of RNs Working Together, AFL-CIO. I want to thank you for the opportunity to present our views on 

the issue of whether the expansion of work visas to foreign nurses is an appropriate 

solution to the nursing shortage that our nation faces. 

First a little about the organization RNs Working Together (RNWT). We are a coalition of ten AFL-CIO unions who represent over 200,000 working registered 

nurses. Each affiliate union has 2 of its nurse leaders who serve on the RNs Working Together Leadership Committee. One of their responsibilities is to set policy for 

our organization. We are a democratic organization and operate by building mutual 

agreement among our members regarding issues that concern working registered 

nurses. 

First of all, the continuing shortage of Registered Nurses is a problem that virtually everyone acknowledges. If you were to walk the halls of America’s hospitals 

and asked a nurse what is the number one problem that they face, they would probably say, ‘‘we do not have enough staff to deliver quality care.’’ While we appreciate 

everyone’s efforts in trying to address this crisis, we do not believe that relying upon 

thousands of additional foreign nurses to deliver health care in the United States 

is an appropriate solution to the nursing shortage. 

There are many factors that contribute the current nursing shortage. Two of the 

major factors that I would like to draw your attention to today is our inability to 

train enough Americans to become registered nurses and the difficult working conditions that working nurses face. To resolve these, and other factors that contribute 

to the nursing shortage, will require a focused, comprehensive strategy. 

First, we do not have the capacity to train enough nurses. Last year alone, approximately one hundred and fifty thousand (150,000) qualified applicants for nursing schools were turned away because there were not enough seats available. Our 

inability to train these applicants is due to a shortage of RN faculty who are often 

paid less than practicing nurses. Congress needs to pass legislation that will increase the capacity of nursing schools to train nurses. This would include incentives 

to attract nurse faculty as well as to actively recruit and provide financial assistance 

to those Americans who would like to become nurses. 

In addition, it is estimated that there are 2.9 million licensed RNs in the U.S., 

but only 2.4 million are providing care to patients. Hundreds of thousands of licensed nurses have left the bed-side in favor of the many other job options now 

available from outpatient jobs, computer jobs, quality management, doctor’s offices, 

pharmaceutical jobs or leaving nursing entirely. A key reason for this migration 

away from the bedside is that chronic understaffing and unmanageable workloads 

are a day-to-day reality. While increasing the number of visas may seem like an 

easy solution, in reality it does nothing to retain nurses that are already trained, 

skilled professionals. Stopping this leakage of nurses will require Congress to direct 

their attention to this issue and pass legislation that will directly improve working 

conditions. Examples include prohibiting mandatory overtime and requiring hospitals to meet safe minimum staffing levels. We are confident that by taking these 

steps, those nurses who have left the profession and those that are now thinking 

about leaving the profession will come back and care for America’s sick. 

As you know, America is not the only country facing a nurse shortage. Indeed 

there is a worldwide shortage of registered nurses. Thus the use of immigration 

policies that allegedly benefit one country in the short-run can be devastating to a 

developing country’s ability to deliver health care to their citizens. Some countries 

have an even greater shortage of nurses and any loss of the nurses they have 

trained can undermine their government’s efforts to staff their own hospitals and 

clinics. In one year alone, Ghana lost more than 500 nurses—more than double the 

number of its new nurse graduates. In the Philippines, not only are they losing 

more nurses than graduate from nursing schools, now even doctors are training to 

become nurses in the hopes that they will find employment in the U.S. In 

Zimbabwe, it has been estimated that the nurse to patient ratio is 1 nurse to 700 

patients. Obviously, nurses in developing countries will find coming to America for 

a job very attractive, as they will experience a great increase in their incomes. But 

expanding nurse visas simply out sources nurse training to developing countries and 

robs them of many of the nurses they have trained. In sum, taking nurses from poor 

countries will have a small short-run impact on the U. S. while increasing the short 

and long-term misery of poor, developing countries. 

Again, I understand that increasing the number of work visas seems like an easy 

solution. However, we believe that developing a comprehensive long-term strategy 

that directly addresses the factors contributing to the nurse shortage in our country, 

such as increasing our capacity to educate new nurses and improving working condiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:22 Jul 17, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\IMMIG\061208\42851.000 HJUD1 PsN: 42851
69

tions, is a more productive use of time and resources and is the only real way in 

which America can solve this long-term issue. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony regarding this important and difficult issue. I can answer any question you can have. 

RNs Working Together is a coalition of the following 10 AFL-CIO unions representing over 200,000 registered nurses. We are America’s largest organization of 

working registered nurses.

American Federation of Government Employees 

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 

American Federation of Teachers (AFT-Health Care) 

California Nurses Association/National Nurse Organizing Committee 

Communications Workers of America 

JNESO/International Union of Operating Engineers 

Office and Professional Employees International Union 

United American Nurses 

International Union, United Autoworkers 

United Steelworkers

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you very much, Mr. Francy. 

And thanks to all three of these witnesses. 

Now is the time when we can address our questions to the witnesses. 

Mr. King, would you like to go first? 

Mr. KING. I would be happy to. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

And I especially also want to thank the witnesses for your testimony. 

It is a subject matter that has been consistently presented to me 

in the district that I represent that goes back many years. We have 

had a nursing shortage in my district, and, in fact, I remember bonuses being paid to recruit our nurses to go to other locations in 

the country, none of which you represent. 

But I remember sitting in a room at Crawford County Memorial 

Hospital where all of our children were born, and I had a conversation there with nine nurses. Of the nine nurses, seven of them, 

their husbands farmed, and they were tied to the land, and they 

could not accept the higher offer to go elsewhere in the country, the 

$10,000 bonus at that time, which probably is higher now. 

So I am watching market forces push on this as well as the education. I was really quite struck by the number of nursing students 

that were qualified applicants that were turned away. 

I think I saw 150,000 was the number that, Ms. Stonestreet, you 

testified to, and I am curious as to how many RNs there are in the 

United States that are qualified and what percentage that works 

out to be, one out of every how many are nurses? 

Ms. STONESTREET. I am not sure that I understand the question. 

There are, in fact, different numbers that are reported in the literature about how many qualified applicants are available to enter 

into nursing school, everything from 88,000 I have seen, 150,000, 

but the bottom line is I think part of the difference in the numbers 

and how they calculate that has to do with whether they are counting applications or applicants and how many are offered positions. 

But the fact of the matter is we do not have a good long-term 

strategy and a short-term strategy in place right now to be able to 

get those——

Mr. KING. Excuse me. I have information in front of me that is 

from the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses that says 

70

that there are 2.9 million registered nurses nationwide. Does that 

seem to be in the——

Ms. STONESTREET. Yes. 

Mr. KING. [continuing]. Context you were talking about? And we 

are expecting a shortage of about a million. Now I have to express 

a little bit of skepticism because in my public life every profession 

that I know of is going to have a shortage of employees. It just demographically works out that way. And what do we do about it? 

I ask you to take advantage of the opportunity to respond to Mr. 

Francy’s testimony that says, ‘‘Let’s put an American solution in 

place.’’ And why would we not ramp up our schools? Why wouldn’t 

we find a way to bring in all the qualified applicants? Why 

wouldn’t we pay an additional $12,000 or $14,000 or $18,000 more 

to nurses that are currently practicing that would be excellent 

teachers instead? Why would we not tool that up and say, ‘‘We can 

fix this.’’

Ms. STONESTREET. Well, I think there are several different—and 

I appreciate the comments that were made here—components. 

Number one, there are a number of individuals who are registered nurses in our country today who are not practicing in hospitals, who are not practicing within the direct-care environment. 

I mean, this room might actually be a microcosm of our country, 

the experience that I have seen, individuals who go on and they 

have been trained as an RN, they practice, but——

Mr. KING. But does his testimony contribute to the solution? Do 

you disagree with Mr. Francy’s testimony? 

Ms. STONESTREET. I do not disagree with the long-term solution. 

What I do disagree with is that we need a solution today. If there 

is one thing that keeps me awake at night, it is that we do not 

have enough nurses to take care of our patients today. 

Mr. KING. Let me just speculate, and then I will turn this back 

to Mr. Francy. 

Thank you. 

I look at these numbers, and they range from 40,000 to 150,000 

applicants that are turned way, because of a shortage of teachers. 

It seems to be the number one reason. And facilities are another, 

and I have watched education facilities in my district be ramped 

up because we need to do this, and I certainly support that and encourage it. 

But if it is 150,000 applicants that are turned away and we are 

going to have a cumulative shortfall of a million by the year 2020 

or about 2008, so it is less than 100,000 a year that would be the 

accumulated shortfall, would there be a reason you could think of, 

Mr. Francy, why we could not meet that need here without having 

to go out and short other nations for the nurses that they are training? 

Mr. FRANCY. I think that we could in addition to those that apply 

now. If we were to actively recruit in the United States and provide 

financial aid to Americans that were interested in entering the 

nursing profession, I do not see any reason why we could not. 

Mr. KING. Now I would just follow up and say as a representative of AFL-CIO and the nurses, you and I agree that this country 

needs a tighter labor supply because the wages and benefits that 

are paid to our workers, both skilled and unskilled, are directly 

71

proportional to the supply and demand. Would you respond to that, 

Mr. Francy? 

Mr. FRANCY. Again, you know, I think that there are certainly 

issues with suppressing wages with foreign workers in some cases, 

in organizing drives, for example, union organizer drives. Foreign 

workers are more vulnerable to threats that if they support the 

union that they would be deported from the United States. 

Ms. LOFGREN. The gentleman’s time has expired. I know we have 

votes very soon. 

Mr. KING. I thank you, Madam Chair, and I am happy to yield 

back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

I would turn now to Mr. Gutierrez for any questions he may 

have. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Well, thank you for your testimony here this afternoon. 

I have an experience in Chicago where two of the largest hospital 

organizations—one is being attempted to be organized by AFSCME 

and the other one by SEIU. Do you have any information on how 

that is going and how that might affect the nursing shortage or 

ability of nurses? 

Mr. FRANCY. Well, I know that AFSCME Council 31 is organizing 

the Resurrection system in Chicago, and it has been a very difficult 

and long, drawn-out fight. Other than that, I do not have any specific information. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Because when I met with AFSCME and I met 

with SEIU, what it is trying to organize, interestingly enough, are 

religious institutions. There is one under the United Church of 

Christ, and the other, under the Catholic Church, and it seemed 

to me that many of the conversations that we had were around 

nurses and the hours that nurses were required to work. 

Mr. FRANCY. Yes. If you ask nurses what is their number one 

problem, they will tell you that it is short staffing. In fact, in one 

nurse survey, 83 percent of RNs responding to the survey said that 

increasing staffing levels would be very successful in retaining and 

recruiting new nurses. So it is a huge problem. 

Mr. GUTIERREZ. You know, as someone who advocates comprehensive immigration reform, I am very, very mindful to all of 

the witnesses about, as we move forward, making sure that where 

we build the jobs, it is really jobs that Americans do not want. 

I think American citizens should be afforded, those that are born 

here should be afforded the absolute opportunity to a job anywhere 

in the United States, regardless. I think that should be paramount 

to any comprehensive immigration reform program that we have, 

and so the testimony today really is important because we do not 

want to deny American workers or we do not want to create a situation which denies American workers the opportunity. 

These are not low-skilled, low-wage job opportunities, which we 

many times speak to the need as our economy creates hundreds of 

thousands of low-skilled, low-wage jobs in different demographic 

areas throughout the United States that we may need. 

And so I thank the witnesses because we have their full written 

testimony which we read and then listened to your 5 minutes on 

the clock which is a great summary of what you have to say. 

72

And lastly, as we look at this, I would say let’s deal with it in 

a comprehensive manner because it is not only nurses. There are 

other sectors of our economy where we want to make sure that we 

supply needed labor, and I think we will need that labor. 

I mean, as a baby boomer myself—I know all three of you are 

too young—I keep thinking about, you know, over 40 percent of our 

workers in the next 20 years, the youngest one will be 65 years of 

age. That is something that we have not encountered in our economy before. 

I just read in The Washington Post we are living longer, and they 

said that Black and Hispanic males are, I mean, tightening with 

White males and women. That is a good thing. That is a good 

thing. That means that there is more parity in health care and in 

economics and the people that are living about the same time. 

But, you know, it is like 81 years for women and 78 years for 

men, and when you consider the drain that we are going to have, 

I think we really need to have a global view of how we address this 

within our workforce. You know, another 10 years, I will be 64. Another 15 years, I will be 70. 

I want to make sure there is a nurse there. I want to make sure 

that there are qualified nurses there. I want to make sure that our 

health care system can be responsive not only to me, but literally 

the tens of millions of others like me who will be retiring and in 

much need. 

So, if you think the problem is bad today, give this another 15 

years. It is going to be critical to our economy. 

So I thank you all for your testimony. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Gutierrez. 

I just want to say a couple of things and ask a couple of questions. 

First, let me say Mr. King is from Iowa. There have been a number of emergencies, as we are well aware in Iowa, and he had to 

go take a call from Secretary Chertoff, and I know that everyone 

will understand that is his first obligation, obviously, today. 

Before I was in Congress, I was on the board of supervisors of 

Santa Clara County, and one of our obligations there was to run 

the county hospital, and I chaired the hospital committee for 12 

years, and every week we would oversee, and I learned a lot about 

the whole health care business in that. 

One of the things we had a very tough time was recruiting 

nurses, and it got to the point where we were in high school helping to pay for kids to go to nursing school. We were also recruiting 

in Ireland. I mean, we did everything. 

And the other thing we did was we raised salaries substantially. 

I mean, when I first was elected, the salaries, I thought, were pretty low. They ended up being quite high, actually, which is good because it is a hard job and it takes a great education, and so that 

was a good development. 

But what is interesting is that as those salaries rose, nobody 

raised the salaries of the professors, and so now we have a shortage situation. I am a co-sponsor of Lois Capp’s bill to increase—a 

strategy because I know people in the technology world, for example, who decided they would rather be a nurse. I mean, these are 

people with science backgrounds that they have been turned away 

73

from nursing schools because there are not enough slots. So, clearly, I think everybody agrees we have to remedy that. 

You know, I have been one who has supported mandatory staffing ratios. I think that is part of the picture of having high nurse 

satisfaction, but, in order to do that, you have to have enough 

nurses. So the question is which comes first, how do we implement 

this strategy that I think there probably is not that much disagreement really in terms of where we want to end up, how do we get 

there. 

Ms. Peterson, at the end of the day, do you support or does the 

ANA support or oppose the bill that Wexler, Sensenbrenner, and 

Feeney have introduced? Can you address that? 

Ms. PETERSON. Yes, I can. 

At this point, we will not oppose it. There are elements of it that 

we think are useful, but I want to just step back for one moment 

because one thing I said in my testimony is we are 10 years into 

this nursing shortage. Ten years we have been talking about education, 10 years we have been talking about faculty, and yet the 

reality for nursing education funding is it has not gone up all that 

dramatically. 

So to sit here and talk about Congressman Wexler’s bill that has 

elements of it that are good—we appreciate the NEED Act being 

included, we appreciate that there is some understanding of the 

need for the circulation of workers to be able to go back home and 

be able to come back in, but the fundamental problem that you 

have already spoken to still has not been addressed, and we have 

been talking about this for 10 years. 

So, at this point, we will not oppose it. We recognize it as a 

short-term strategy. We do not like it. We believe that we need to 

be addressing the fundamental problem, and that is funding for 

nursing education, and, quite frankly, if we get to the end of the 

time period of Mr. Wexler’s bill, at the end of that period, and we 

still do not have any data and we still have not seen see an increase in nursing education funding and we still have not seen 

some of these other workforce issues being addressed, we will not 

be supporting it again. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I understand. That is very helpful information. 

Maybe, Dr. Stonestreet, I do not know if you know this or not, 

but isn’t there at least a funding mechanism in the Wexler bill? 

Ms. STONESTREET. Yes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. I mean, I am not saying it is going to cover all of 

it, but it will help. 

Ms. STONESTREET. Right, but there is $1,500 per nurse who is 

employed. The facilities that would bring them over would pay 

that, which would go into the funding for education. 

Ms. LOFGREN. But I think, you know, if you look at the city—

for example, San Jose State in my district has a school of nursing, 

but they have had to turn people away because they do not have 

enough professors, and there is really a capacity problem there, 

even though they have great applicants. I do not blame the university, they do not have the money, and we have to do something 

about this as a nationwide strategy, it seems to me, and I understand the frustration. 

74

I was in the minority in the House for 12 years, and I have been 

in the majority now for 16 months, and so we have not achieved 

everything we wanted to achieve in that timeframe, but the speaker has put a tremendous emphasis on funding for education and 

also science funding, and I personally know that she believes that 

is such a compelling need for our country that I have actually renewed confidence that some of these items that have been languishing are going to be dealt with because I do not think the three 

of you are really disagreeing when it comes to that, and that is the 

interesting thing. 

You know, my light is on, and that would not be fair to Ms. Jackson Lee, who I will now recognize for 5 minutes. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

And let me suggest to the witnesses and those who were on the 

first panel that when you see Members rushing in—of course, the 

Chairwoman has indicated, the challenges for the Ranking Member—some of us have been on other Committees. But we rush in 

for the very reason that we are very much in sync with the Chairwoman’s continued march toward a solution. 

We on this side of the aisle have always wanted or wished for, 

if you will, a comprehensive approach to immigration reform that 

would in essence broadly speak to many of the issues that we are 

having a hearing on, but you will also find very sympathetic advocates for the funding of more education for engineers, for nurses. 

And, of course, our colleague Congressman Gutierrez mentioned 

that a nursing crisis is a health crisis, it is a life and death crisis, 

and so I apparently came in on the very appropriate panel. 

But please know that I want to put on the record that we have 

been meticulously meeting over these 16 months and building the 

building blocks to say that we have to have a comprehensive immigration reform package. I would also acknowledge, because many 

of us have legislative initiatives that track sort of the same theme, 

to solve this problem both in terms of benefits, in terms of the need 

for additional expertise that immigrants bring—and also border security—the legislation that I have, the comprehensive Save America Act, also responds to the question of American workers, hiring 

American workers, training American workers, using resources 

that you would have to invest in underemployed areas and areas 

where we need more training. 

So let me acknowledge where we are trying to go and accept also 

the burden of being in the minority and the lack of focus on nursing education, since the witnesses are addressing that question. I 

have purview of A&M School of Nursing in my congressional area, 

and it is climbing the mountain of excellence. It is getting better 

and better and better and better every year, but the resources are 

limited. 

So let me acknowledge that the immigration aspect is only a 

piece of the puzzle, that we certainly need to look at the domestic 

supply of nurses, and we have to acknowledge that Congress has 

not done enough and find a way to reach an immediate balance. 

So I would ask the question that you may have had already in your 

testimony, if each of you would answer it as to tell me the length 

and breadth of the nursing shortage, number one. Number two, a 

quick infusion of dollars into nursing education, how quick would 

75

we get relief, and that means we are talking about drawing upon 

the domestic base. 

And then what is the enhanced value of an immigration component through visas that would allow these skilled workers to come 

in? We had an electrical engineer. I have heard from African-Americans who indicate they are presently available. No one recruits 

them. So what would be the immediate benefit of an immigration 

fix, if you will, that would bring nurses in from around the world? 

I know some of you are taking notes, and I appreciate it, and 

apologize. I want to add a component of transitional training, what 

that means is language and techniques maybe, comfort level. You 

could include that in your answers. 

And I will start first with who seems to be writing the fastest, 

Jana Stonestreet. 

Ms. STONESTREET. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

I think I will address first of all the immediate benefit. In our 

hospital system—and I can speak for it, but within San Antonio, 

within the Baptist Health Care System—we have presently 236 

nursing positions that are open. So an immediate benefit that we 

would get for this short-term relief with the immigrant nurses 

would be to be able to fill those positions. 

We have had 88 nurses that we actually interviewed 21⁄2 years 

ago. Eighty of those still, even though they are qualified and ready 

to come, are not able to come yet because of the immigration restrictions that are present. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. The caps? 

Ms. STONESTREET. The caps that are present today. So the immediate solution would be to help us. 

And I think one of the things that we have talked about is the 

work environment, and which comes first, the chicken or the egg, 

how does it really come. Well, if you do not have enough nurses 

today, then the environment is not as positive because we are 

working shorter, it is more stressful, and so on. So, if we can get 

over kind of a little bit of the hump and be able to get enough 

nurses to be able to work and to fill the positions, it can help us 

carry through and create that better environment that we all really 

work for. 

You know, one of the things that is somewhat offensive as a 

nurse executive within a hospital system—and that has been my 

role since 1991 within three hospital systems—is the implication 

that we are not trying to create the best environment, not trying 

to create an environment that is positive. I will tell you we are 

doing, you know, cartwheels trying to be able to make that happen. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Dr. Stonestreet, the time has expired, and if you 

could just very quickly sum up, and then if we could get quick answers from the other two witnesses because we have run out of 

time. 

Ms. STONESTREET. Absolutely. I think those are the key points 

that I wanted to be able to make and, hopefully, have then answered your question. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. 

Ms. Peterson? 

Ms. PETERSON. Thank you very much. 

76

I guess I will talk to the piece of the transitional challenges that 

you added at the end. ANA just completed a series of three regional 

conferences where we were trying to look at what types of programs existed in hospitals and also within the recruiters who recruit and bring the nurses here. When we bring them here, how 

do we be sure that they are successful? 

We know that one of the biggest barriers is really language and 

communication, and so the programs that we saw—some were in 

Chicago. There is one at Johns Hopkins, also University of Pennsylvania—they have made an effort to try and really, one, assist 

the foreign-educated nurse when she or he comes to the U.S. in 

terms of just understanding how do I get a bank account, where 

am I going to live, how do I get from here to there, and then they 

have courses that are related to understanding language and lingo, 

and in particular medical terminology here in the U.S. 

The other critical piece to that is helping them to understand the 

culture, meaning the relationship between physicians and nurses 

and other health care providers, and also understanding that relationship from the perspective of patients, family, and community. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

Mr. Francy, you are doing cleanup, and then we will adjourn. 

Mr. FRANCY. Thank you. One of the things that was kind of implied was kind of the bang for the buck, and we have talked a lot 

about education, and if you considered this bottle of pouring more 

water into that, that would be increasing the supply of education 

which would fill it up. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Which is crucial. 

Mr. FRANCY. Crucial. But there is a hole in this bottle and there 

is leakage. Water is coming out. Those are nurses that are leaving 

the profession. They are leaving the profession because of staffing 

levels, of injury rates—it is a very high injury profession—and 

mandatory overtime, et cetera, and so the point I am trying to 

make is that education is fundamentally a part of this solution, but 

also addressing the working conditions of registered nurses has to 

be part of the solution to plug this hole so, while we are pouring 

in, it is filling up and not just, you know, going up and down. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I thank the witnesses. 

Madam Chair, I yield back to you by reemphasizing my continued point of the importance of recruiting American workers for 

these positions as we look to emergency relief, and taking Mr. 

Francy’s point of working conditions so that no matter who you are, 

African-Americans or Anglos, Asians, or Hispanics who are Americans here, who could be workers need to be included in this package as we look to solve this problem through the immigration process, and, of course, the final point is continue to push for comprehensive immigration reform. 

I yield back. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. 

The gentlelady yields back. 

We will now be adjourning our hearing. I want to thank each of 

you as well as the first panel. 

A lot of people do not realize that the witnesses are volunteers, 

really coming to help the Congress try and get it right when we 

77

look at legislation. We do appreciate your service for your country 

as witnesses. 

We will keep the record open for 5 days. If we have additional 

questions for any of you or the first panel, we will forward them 

and, if that occurs, we would request that you answer them as 

promptly as possible. 

Once again, than you very much, and this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:08 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(79)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ZOE LOFGREN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRWOMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL

LAW

I would like to welcome the Subcommittee Members, our witnesses, and members 

of the public to the Subcommittee’s hearing to explore the need for green cards for 

highly educated employees in the fields of science, technology, engineering and 

mathematics (STEM), as well as nursing. 

There is a recognized shortage of U.S. employees available to fill jobs requiring 

the highest educational levels, particularly in the fields of STEM. 

According to the National Foundation for American Policy:

Major U.S. technology companies today average more than 470 U.S.-based job 

openings for skilled positions, while defense companies have more than 1,265 

each, indicating U.S. businesses continue to experience difficulty in filling positions in the United States for skilled labor of all types.

At the same time that our country is experiencing a shortage in U.S. employees 

at the highest educational levels, employers from Europe, Australia, Canada, and 

even China and India, are increasingly attracting to their shores the highly educated, high achieving scientists, engineers, mathematicians and researchers that are 

the foundation for innovation. In 2000, for example, 75% of the world’s engineers 

were hired by U.S. employers—just six years later, in 2006, that percentage dropped 

to 63%. 

Today, more than half of the graduates from U.S. universities in masters and 

Ph.D. programs in science and engineering are foreign-born. To ensure that America 

remains the greatest source of innovation in the world, we must not only educate 

more U.S. students in STEM, we must retain the best and brightest innovators 

among them so that they can work with us, rather than compete against us in other 

countries. 

In addition, at the same time that nursing schools are unable to produce enough 

nurses to meet existing health care needs around the country, the demand for 

nurses is projected to continue increasing at high rates as the Baby Boom Generation hits retirement and birth rates plunge. Currently, 12.4% of the U.S. population 

is age 65 and older; that percentage is projected to increase to 16.3% in 2020 and 

20.0% in 2030. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how the current immigration system has failed to respond effectively to these economic and health care 

needs, and what might be done to address the situation in the near and long term. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE

fJOHN CONYERS, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, AND CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON THE

JUDICIARY

Today we are looking at long-term legal immigration solutions for graduates in 

the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics—known as ‘‘STEM’’—

as well as in the field of nursing. 

We have bipartisan legislation before the Committee on both issues. I would like 

to thank Zoe Lofgren, Robert Wexler, and Jim Sensenbrenner for their leadership 

on H.R. 6039 and H.R. 5924. 

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Before I comment on these bills, I would like to point out that on the issues before 

us today, labor and business interests have worked together in good faith to develop 

pragmatic solutions. Nursing groups and the SEIU have worked with the hospitals 

to come up with a good first step in dealing with the nursing shortage. The engineers and the high-tech companies have come to a common ground to get the best 

foreign talent while preventing worker exploitation. It’s my hope we can make the 

same commitment to break the immigration logjam. 

Turning first to Ms. Lofgren’s bill, H.R. 6039, this measure will help the United 

States to keep the best and brightest STEM graduate students. 

Think for the moment of a foreign student at University of Michigan or Wayne 

State who does an internship with one of the car companies. The reality is that the 

major automakers are working round the clock on critical research and development 

of fuel-cell technologies, electric vehicle technologies, and other fuel-efficient alternatives. And, the reality is that many of the researchers on the cutting edge are 

foreign students. 

With soaring oil prices clobbering hard-working Americans all across the country, 

this work is absolutely essential to our national interests. The research that these 

engineers perform, and the products they develop, will keep American manufacturers competitive, and will keep and create jobs in Michigan and in the United States. 

But when they graduate, they can’t move into a permanent job offer from the 

American company, but have to leave the country and go wait in the horribly backlogged line for employment visas. So if the American automaker or supplier wants 

to continue their research, the engineer will at best have to work for a foreign subsidiary in Canada, India, or Mexico. More likely, we will lose them altogether It 

makes no sense to make these graduates leave. 

The current system is bad for the graduates, bad for the companies, and hurts 

the communities that they had been part of while in school. By focusing on the 

green card track, these workers are at less risk of exploitation than in a temporary 

guestworker program. As a result, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is in favor of this approach. 

The notion that high-skilled immigrants are an economic engine is proved every 

day, as we see other countries—such as Singapore and Switzerland—try to snatch 

the best and brightest foreign students away from us. 

As with all immigrants, these graduates aren’t just an economic engine, but a cultural engine as well. Their continued presence will have a long-term benefit to effect 

on our communities and our Nation. This is not just a theory, or rhetoric. Just look 

at Senator Barack Obama, the son of a graduate student at University of Hawaii, 

or Governor Bobby Jindal, whose mother came to Louisiana State University as a 

graduate student in physics. 

Secondly, on the nursing front, we will hear from our experts about H.R. 5924, 

Mr. Wexler’s bipartisan bill with Mr. Sensenbrenner as an original cosponsor. This 

bill seeks to address the nursing shortage. As many citizens in our Nation are 

aging, there is a rising shortage of nurses, home care workers, and physical therapists, especially in rural areas. 

Congressmen Wexler and Sensenbrenner have worked with the Hospital Administrators, the Nurses Association, and the SEIU to address this shortage with a blend 

of immigrant and domestic capacity-building. 

The idea is an elegant one. First, the bill exempts up to 20,000 nurses and therapists per year from the notoriously backlogged employment-based visa caps. 

Then, using funds from fees paid by the hospitals who benefit from employing 

those foreign nurses, the bill will fund grants to U.S. nursing schools, which in recent years have had to turn away more than 100,000 applicants a year because they 

lacked sufficient faculty and laboratories. 

This is a good start to deal with this pressing problem. We will need to do more. 

I hope to soon introduce legislation to provide even more funding for the schools and 

nursing scholarships, and to get more PhD-level instructors and experienced nurses 

into faculty positions. 

We also need to have a concerted effort for retention. Nursing is a hard job, and 

the average tenure is from 4 to 7 years because of the stress and the current health 

care system. When we get to universal health care—as we must—it will be the 

nurses who are on the front lines. 

These two proposals are exactly the kind of cooperation and pragmatism that we 

should encourage and support. I applaud these bills’ sponsors for taking these productive steps, and I thank the witnesses for appearing before us today. 

f81

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE SHEILA JACKSON LEE, A REPRESENTATIVE

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMI- GRATION, CITIZENSHIP, REFUGEES, BORDER SECURITY, AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

Thank you, Chairwoman Lofgren, and ranking member King, for convening today’s very important oversight hearing on green cards for highly skilled workers. 

This hearing will explore the need for green cards for highly educated employees 

in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and nursing. I welcome the testimony of today’s witnesses. 

Increasingly, the evidence continues to show that immigration is good for the 

economy, jobs, and a critical part of our nation’s prosperity. There is a recognized 

shortage of U.S. employees available to fill jobs requiring the highest educational 

levels, particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. 

Major U.S. technology companies today average more than 470 U.S.-based job 

openings for skilled positions, while defense companies have more than 1,265 each, 

indicating U.S. business continue to experience difficulty in filling positions in the 

United States for skilled labor of all types. A number of companies have thousands 

of skilled positions available, with this level of openings persisting for a year or 

more. This is part of longer-term trend that threatens to harm America’s economic 

future, with U.S. companies lacking access to the skilled professionals needed to 

grow and innovate inside the United States. 

Foreign-based educated nurses play a vital role in relieving shortages in many 

U.S. hospitals. However, the entry of most foreign nurses is blocked or delayed for 

years due to a failure to increase immigration quotas. Despite nursing shortages, 

U.S. immigration policy actually treats nurses worse than other professions. Medical 

literature shows that the nursing shortages contribute to death and illness for U.S. 

patients. Foreign-educated nurses are only one solution, research and interviews 

find relief from strict immigration quotas would help patients, hospitals, and the nation as a whole. 

The need for nurses is projected to continue to increase as the U.S. population 

ages and the birth rates drop. Currently, 12.4% of the U.S. population is age 65 or 

older. That percentage is projected to increase to 16.3% in 202 and 20.0% in 2030. 

In this hearing, the subcommittee will explore whether and how the current immigration system has failed to respond effectively to these economic and health care 

needs, and what might be done to address this situation in the near future. 

The Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes a minimum of 140,000 visas per 

year to immigrants based upon employment in the United States. All but 5,000 of 

such employment-based immigrant visas go to highly skilled and highly educated 

immigrants. Yet the wait times for these immigrant visas also continues to rise. The 

current wait for highly educated immigrants ranges from two to six years, depending upon education and achievement and country of origin. Highly educated immigrants from India and China suffer from particularly long backlogs. Approximately 

400,000 to 500,000 intending employment-based immigrants are believed be caught 

in the legal immigration backlog. 

The 140,000 employment-based immigrant visa numbers allocated annually have 

proven insufficient to meet the needs of U.S. employers in certain preference categories, most notably in the second and third preferences, which are the categories 

most used by highly educated, high achieving immigrants in STEM fields and nursing. 

More and more, employers from Europe, Australia, Canada, China and India are 

beating U.S. employers for valuable talent. In 2000, 75 percent of the world’s engineers were hired by the U.S. In 2006, 63 percent of the world’s engineers were hired 

by the U.S. Today, more than half of the graduates of U.S. universities in masters 

and Ph.D. programs in science and engineering are foreign-born. We must do all 

that we can to ensure that America stays competitive in math, science and engineering. America must continue to attract the best and the brightest innovators to venture to the U.S. to help us maintain our advantage. 

Notably, there are two legislative proposals that would address this problem. The 

first, H.R. 6039, a bipartisan bill authored by Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, would 

provide that masters and Ph.D. level graduates from U.S. U.S. universities in 

science, technology, engineering, and math could accept employment offers from 

American companies and receive a permanent resident visas. There are an estimated 12,000 graduates per year in this category. 

The second is H.R. 5924, the Emergency Nursing Supply Relief Act, a bipartisan 

bill introduced by Congressman Wexler and Congressman Sensenbrenner. This bill 

82

provides a three-year exemption from current Employment-Based visa caps for up 

to 20,000 RNs and physical therapists each year. The bill is also designed to enhance the training and retention of U.S.-educated nurses, applying a $1,500 fee on 

employers for each application for a green card for grants to U.S. nursing schools, 

which have turned away over 100,000 applications. H.R. 5924 would also incorporate a pilot program for retention grants, subject to appropriations, that will fund 

career enhancement training for healthcare workers. 

I welcome the witnesses’ insightful testimony. Thank you, I yield the balance of 

my time. 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE H

fONORABLE EARL POMEROY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA

Chairwoman Lofgren and Ranking Member King, I would like thank you for holding this important hearing to discuss methods to address shortages of highly skilled 

workers, including health care professionals in our country. 

Right now, we are in the middle of a severe shortage of physicians in the United 

States, especially in rural and lower income communities. This problem is expected 

to get much worse in the coming decades, with experts saying that by 2020, the 

United States will have a shortage of 85,000 to 200,000 doctors. Without a doubt, 

this projected shortage will hit rural and low-income areas the hardest. It is imperative that Congress act now to ensure that these vulnerable populations have access 

to qualified physicians and needed medical services. 

To help address the shortages, Congress created the Conrad 30 program in 1994. 

Under this program, foreign doctors who have received medical training in the 

United States are granted a waiver from a visa requirement to return to their home 

country for two years. In exchange for this waiver, the doctors must commit to providing health care to underserved populations in the United States for three years. 

In the nearly 15 years of this program, thousands of doctors have been placed in 

rural and low-income areas in all 50 states. 

Unfortunately, at a time when the need for doctors is growing, the number of doctors entering the Conrad 30 program is in decline. For that reason, I introduced 

H.R. 5707, the Conrad State 30 Improvement Act. This legislation makes the 

Conrad 30 program permanent. Importantly, the bill improves incentives for doctors 

to enter the program by providing a green card cap exemption for doctors who complete the program. In addition, it creates a means by which the current cap of 30 

doctors per state under the program can expand, while still protecting those states 

that have had a hard time recruiting doctors under the program. 

There have been discussions within the medical community for years about the 

best way to expand the Conrad 30 program, and this legislation is the first approach 

universally supported by the medical community. Today, I would like to insert letters into the record in support of this bill from the following organizations:

• Association of American Medical Colleges

• American Medical Association

• American College of Physicians

• American Hospital Association

• Health Partners Medical Group and Clinics

• Immigration Voice

• National Cooperative of Health Networks Association

• National Health Care Access Coalition

• National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health

• National Rural Health Association

• National Rural Recruitment and Retention Network (3RNet)

• North Dakota Hospital Association

I appreciate your attention to this important program, and I look forward to working with you on this legislation as we move forward. The Conrad 30 program has 

greatly benefited my state, and I believe that the changes to this program will be 

valuable for helping to combat the growing shortage of physicians. Thank you. 

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1 COGME’s 16th Report to Congress: Too Many Physicians Could Be Worse Than Wasted. 

Robert L. Phillips, Jr, MD, MSPH1, Martey Dodoo, PhD1, Carlos R. Jae ́n, MD, PhD2 and Larry 

A. Green, MD1 2Medically Underserved Areas are calculated based on population density, infant mortality/

low birth-weight, provider ratios, and percent elderly 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY

fAMUNDSON, M.A., CENTER FOR RURAL HEALTH, 

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND HEALTH SCIENCES

My name is Mary Amundson and I am an assistant professor at the Center for 

Rural Health, University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences 

in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Thank you for allowing me to provide testimony on 

the Conrad State 30 program which helps to address a vital issue facing not only 

rural America but also urban areas across the country as well. 

I have been working in the area of physician recruitment and retention for the 

past nineteen years, working with communities and health care providers to improve access to primary care services through a variety of federal and state programs. 

Access to health care is a fundamental issue facing America’s rural citizens. Rural 

Americans account for approximately one-fourth of the U.S. population; however, 

only about 10 percent of the physicians practice in rural areas. Rural communities 

in North Dakota, and throughout the country, are experiencing the closing of essential access points such as rural primary care clinics, home health care services, and 

even rural ambulances. The health care safety-net for rural America is threatened 

and the health status of rural Americans is compromised. Rural Americans do not 

seek unnecessary services, they do not seek more than what they need; they do however, expect that their legitimate access to health care services are commensurate 

with meeting the service needs of populations in more urban settings. 

The Conrad J-1 Visa Waiver Program initiated in 1994 has been a very important 

program not only for North Dakota but for all 50 States and the District of Columbia. The amendments proposed in this new legislation will increase the supply of 

physicians to underserved areas all across the country. 

Physician shortages are not unique to North Dakota but are evident in all 50 

states and the District of Columbia. The demand for primary care physicians, especially the specialties of family medicine and general surgery is at an all time high. 

For example, the American Academy of Family Physicians (2008) notes a steady decline in the number of students choosing family medicine from 1997–2007. Today’s 

medical students who are tomorrow’s physicians, are not choosing primary care due, 

in part, to life style and income which negatively impacts access to care for those 

citizens living in rural areas where the shortage of providers is most evident. ‘‘Departing from past reports, the 16th Report to Congress from the Council on Graduate Medical Education (COGME) report warns of a physician deficit of 85,000 by 

2020 and recommends increases in medical school and residency output.’’ 1 Added 

to this dilemma is the fact that, according to the American Medical Association, 

250,000 active physicians will retire by 2020. 

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that 34.9 

million Americans live in federally-designated health professional shortage areas 

where there is less than one primary care physician for every 2,000 persons in 

urban, suburban, and rural areas. Nationally, 67 percent of the non-metropolitan 

areas in the U.S. are located in federally designated Health Professional Shortage 

Areas. By way of example, in North Dakota, 81 percent of the state is located in 

Health Professional Shortage Areas. Further, 91 percent of the state is located in 

Medically Underserved Areas which are also eligible areas for the Conrad Program.2

Health provider need is determined by the number of vacancies or job openings. 

For example, on a recent survey of health care facilities in North Dakota, 46 percent 

of our health care facilities (32/69) reported vacancies for family medicine or internal medicine physicians. Of the facilities recruiting these providers, 73 percent of 

the sites were located in underserved areas. 

If it were not for the Conrad J-1 Visa Program, I can assure you that more of 

our rural health care facilities all across the country would be closed today. For example, the health care facility in Crosby, ND, a town of about 1,000 people, utilized 

this program starting in 1995. From 1995–2005, the community recruited five physicians through this program that sustained their health care services. These physicians allowed the continuation of services to the citizens of Crosby until a U.S. physician was finally recruited to the community this past year. The Conrad Program 

provided a much needed bridge to services until a more permanent physician could 

84

3Texas Primary Care Office, Conrad 30 Program and from the GAO Report released in November 2007. 

be found. Scenarios like these can be cited in communities all across the nation particularly in the Midwest and West. 

Although there is a call from the Association of American Medical Colleges to increase medical school class size, this will take time which our fragile rural health 

care systems don’t have; our health care systems simply won’t survive. Immediate 

policy solutions to the physician shortage problem are needed today. 

The initial legislation enacted by Congress in 1994 provided a much needed resource to aid communities in recruiting providers; however, due to a decrease in the 

number of physicians entering training on the J-1 Visa, changes are needed. The 

Conrad 30 program has been very successful in providing 5,732 waivers from 2001–

2007 and the proposed amendments by Senator Conrad will make it even stronger. 

As I have stated, the Conrad 30 program is essential in increasing and assuring 

access to care for millions of Americans and we are appreciative of this program. 

However, advocating for its re-authorization every two years is precarious for these 

Americans. Consequently, the proposed legislation that makes the program permanent is extremely important to stabilizing health care services. 

States are seeing a steady decline in the number of J-1 physicians applying for 

Conrad waivers from a high of 1,033 in 2003 to 866 waivers in 2007.3 This decline 

is due to the increase in the number of physicians entering the country on H-1B 

Visas. These visas do not require service to the underserved; these physicians simply need an employer. Policy changes need to be included that address the H-1B 

visa issue. 

The Conrad State 30 Improvement Act proposes five principal reforms to the 

Conrad program. First, the Conrad State 30 Improvement Act would make the program permanent. Second, the act would allow physicians on H-1B visa to obtain a 

Conrad 30 waiver slot in return for a three-year service obligation in a federally designated shortage area. Third, the act would offer a green card cap exemption for 

physicians who have completed the Conrad 30 program. Fourth, the bill would provide increased flexibility for states to manage the program to meet their needs by 

increasing the Flex slots from five to ten per state. These slots are used for doctors 

employed at facilities that are not located in federally designated shortage area that 

serve patients who live in these designated areas. Finally, the bill would create a 

fair mechanism which would allow the 30 doctor per state cap to increase under certain conditions. 

When the Conrad J-1 Visa Waiver program was first implemented in 1994, not 

all states participated in the program. But within a few years, states were realizing 

the benefits of this program and all states now participate. This is a very successful 

program and is helping to address our needs as a nation to improve access to care 

among the nation’s most vulnerable populations. The amendments in the Conrad 

State 30 Improvement Act are important to further improve the program and ensure that physicians are available to serve the nations underserved. 

In conclusion, the Conrad State 30 Improvement Act strikes the right balance between big and small states and has support from across the medical community, 

from groups that have disagreed in the past on how to improve the program. Those 

groups that have endorsed the bill include the American Hospital Association, the 

American Medical Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, American College of Physicians, the National Cooperative of Health Networks Association, National Health Care Access Coalition, National Organization of State Offices 

of Rural Health, National Rural Health Association, National Rural Recruitment 

and Retention Network (3RNet), North Dakota Hospital Association, and 

HealthPartners (MN). 

Thank you for this opportunity to write in support of a critical program that improves the lives of millions of Americans. 

I would be happy to work with you to elaborate on issues and answer your questions. For information regarding this testimony, please contact: 

f

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF JACK KRUMHOLTZ, MANAGING DIRECTOR FEDERAL

GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, MICROSOFT

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H.eps
86

LETTER FROM DARRELL G. KIRCH, M.D.,

THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL COLLEGES (AAMC)


C-1.eps
87

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C-2.eps
88

LETTER FROM RICK POLLACK, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,

THE AMERICAN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION


D-1.eps
89

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D-2.eps
90

LETTER FROM ROGER COCHETTI, DIRECTOR—U.S. PUBLIC POLICY, COMPTIA


F-1.eps
91

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F-2.eps
92

LETTER FROM IMMIGRATION VOICE, THE NATIONAL COOPERATIVE OF HEALTH NETWORKS ASSOCIATION, THE NATIONAL HEALTH CARE ACCESS COALITION, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF STATE OFFICES OF RURAL HEALTH, THE NATIONAL

RURAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION, THE NATIONAL RURAL RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

NETWORK (3RNET), AND THE NORTH DAKOTA HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION


I-1.eps
93

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I-2.eps
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LETTER FROM MICHAEL D. MAVES, MD, MBA, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CEO, 

THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

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E.eps
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LETTER FROM NANCY MCCLURE, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,

HEALTHPARTNERS MEDICAL GROUP AND CLINICS

Æ


G.eps