As debate rages over what to do about high-skill immigration to the United States, the vast complexity of U.S. immigration law can make issues difficult for non-experts to understand. A report from the Congressional Research Service helps clarify one option that, it says, "has become increasingly popular": eliminating the ceilings that currently limit the number of individuals from a given country who can be admitted on the basis of work skills. This would not change the total number of persons admitted on this basis. A bill to this effect passed the House of Representatives in November.
As befits a study from Congress's non-partisan analytic arm, the report lays out the facts and policy options without expressing any opinion. Some people, it suggests, see raising country limits as a compromise between critics who argue against increased employment-based immigration during a severe recession and employers who "assert they need the 'best and brightest' workers, regardless of their country of birth." Removing the country caps, some "theorize,...would increase the flow of high-skilled immigrants without increasing the total number of employment-based" admissions, the report notes. Presumably, it would allow the skilled individuals from large sending countries such as India and China who are already waiting to "move closer to the head of the line."
Critics of the country caps call them "arbitrary" because "employability has nothing to do with country of birth," the report continues. Others, however, argue that they keep "high-demand countries" from dominating immigration, helping to "preserve the diversity of the immigrant flows."
If country caps were removed, India, the Phillipines, China, and Mexico would be, in numerical order, the countries most affected. "The data...suggest [emphasis in original] that the vast number of Indians are waiting to adjust status in the United States" from temporary to permanent, "while the vast number of Filipinos are waiting to immigrate from abroad." The Chinese appear to be "more evenly split" between those two categories.
