House passes STEM Act, may head to the Senate
In the first post-election effort to reform U.S. immigration policy, the House on Friday approved a Republican-sponsored measure, STEM Jobs Act, by a margin of 245 to 139.
The vote fell primarily along party lines, and followed an unsuccessful, last-minute move by Democrats to push through another version of the STEM visa bill that would keep the diversity lottery, which the Republican bill eliminates. Republicans cast 218 votes in favor of their STEM bill, but only 27 Democrats did so. Democrats cast 134 votes against it, with only five Republicans voting “No.”
The bill eliminates the diversity visa program and reallocates up to 55,000 new green cards – the document that establishes legal permanent U.S. residency, for foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
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Wait, the STEM act isn’t about marijuana?
Professor_Chaos on December 1, 2012 at 11:40 AM
countries like saudi arabia, china, and india send their students to the US, pay for the education and costs to live, in order to gain the skills in these subjects to bring them back to their home countries. in the US, we look to other countries to find their best and brigthest.
kind of weird.
TheBlueSite on December 1, 2012 at 11:44 AM
Great – foreigners will hold the high paying STEM jobs, while Americans get to flip burgers and mow their lawns.
Oh wait, those jobs are taken by illegals.
Remember when a country was run for the benefit of it’s citizens? Oh wait, only America takes a huge dump on it’s citizens, every other country takes self-interest seriously.
Rebar on December 1, 2012 at 11:47 AM
I believe you’re refering to the “SEADS and STEMS” act.
BallisticBob on December 1, 2012 at 11:57 AM
house passes stem act and obama bogarts it.
renalin on December 1, 2012 at 12:00 PM
BallisticBob on December 1, 2012 at 12:06 PM
It is always good to have the best and brightest in your country. However, the more people you allow to come in, the more competition for jobs there is, and the salaries for those positions go down. Then you have politicians wondering why the smartest American students don’t choose to go into engineering.
WisCon on December 1, 2012 at 12:07 PM
Now there’s a comprehensive immigration reform that I can understand and support. What we have now is designed to import the needy and grow the dependent class. It is self-destructive nonsense.
If the GOP should had pushed STEM long ago, probably it wouldn’t have gotten beat up so bad on the immigration issue.
petefrt on December 1, 2012 at 12:14 PM
This is an appetizer. The GOP is taking baby steps, but they’re goal is immigration reform. They can’t take such a giant step as yet (the base might revolt). So start small, and within a few years, voila, immigration reform, a bipartisan deal with the progs. Watch for it.
tommy71 on December 1, 2012 at 12:18 PM
DV actually has quotas, and that’s why many countries are for now excluded (China, Philippines, Canada, India, DR, Mexico, Haiti, UK, Pakistan etc.)
This STEM version would mean instead of 50,000 immigrants from all over the world, of all skill sets, we will be taking in less than half of that (?) from prominently Chinese and Indian grads.
Doesn’t seem very well thought.
lester on December 1, 2012 at 12:18 PM
The Dems can pretend they hate it because it lacks racial quotas, but they will probably support it while publicizing the racial prejudice of the GOP.
Earlier in the year, Jennifer Wedel wanted Obama to find a job for her STEM husband. Obama asked for his resume and promised to help. Researching, I found this thread in DICE, 04-09-12:
Anyone hear the GOP complaining?
I have a STEM family member in silicon valley. Used to overflow jobs. He got an engineer friend into his shop, at a huge pay cut, and the guy was so grateful. In relative’s company the world slowdown is cutting sales. Most engineers he knows got written up, demoted or took cuts to keep their jobs. Relative had to take 30 percent cut to hold on. Lives in the middle of the tech mecca but has to commute a hundred miles to keep a paycheck. Meanwhile has huge million dollar mortgage burden. (homes are priced high where the jobs are). Guy is a wizard, the one who solves the problems other engineers get stuck on. His resume is great. Replies are sparse. Yeah, there’s no one to hire, let’s go overseas
entagor on December 1, 2012 at 1:02 PM
We truly are in a bizzaro world, where the government’s solution to high American unemployment, is to continue to bring in foreign workers by the shipload.
Rebar on December 1, 2012 at 1:26 PM
That’s because students from the U.S. are majoring in X-Studies and Underwater Basketweaving instead of something useful, like the Foreign Students do.
Ref: See Occupy Wall Street for a complete and consise example of this.
jaydee_007 on December 1, 2012 at 1:39 PM
This is a pretty good result. 134 Dems on the record opposing immigration.
Of course, they opposed it for purposes of saving a pet “diversity” program, but that doesn’t matter for purposes of attack ads.
There’s not enough qualified Americans to do these jobs. That’s why this program exists. Math is too hard.
The 6-month unemployment rate for Americans with STEM degrees is 0.
HitNRun on December 1, 2012 at 1:43 PM
There is more is more going on here. Congress is pandering to the big high tech companies, who don’t want to hire americans. Go to engineerjobs.com and click on the resume link under the employers tab. You will see the resumes of nearly 19,000 american engineers who are out of work, and are willing to relocate anywhere in the country. That number has increased from 17,000 in the past 2 months. And that’s directly attributable to the reelection of the idiot abroad.
Red Creek on December 1, 2012 at 1:59 PM
That is utter bullsh!t.
This.
Rebar on December 1, 2012 at 2:01 PM