Earlier today, we sent a letter to the U.S. Senate from the Presidents' Alliance Steering Committee expressing qualified support for the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, S.386. 

The letter reads in part:

As the Steering Committee for the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration (Presidents’ Alliance), we write to express our qualified support of the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019 (S.386 in the Senate and H.R.1044 in the House). This legislation would lift the employment per-country caps and raise the family per-country caps to 15 percent. We are heartened to see that this bipartisan legislation represents a good-faith effort to address the inherent inequities in our immigration system that lead to immigrants from certain countries waiting decades before a visa becomes available. Importantly, we view this bill as a starting point for larger, greatly needed reforms to our immigration system, including other reforms to promote our nation’s competitiveness in regards to international students and scholars and to establish a roadmap to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, Dreamer students and others . . .

While we believe that a preferable approach would be to increase the overall cap on applications to deal with the current inequities, we appreciate the intent behind this legislation. The bill’s goal to establish parity and equity in our immigration system and to eventually clear out the backlogs in our system is compelling.

For these reasons, we at the Presidents’ Alliance support the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2019, applaud the House’s passage of H.R. 1044, and now urge the Senate to pass this legislation swiftly and without delay. 

To read the full letter, click here or below.


Thank you for your continued support.

Miriam Feldblum and Jose Magaña-Salgado
Executive Director & Director of Policy and Communications