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SIIA Endorses New Legislation to Retain Foreign-Born Graduates with Critical Expertise as Boost to American Innovation and Competitiveness

WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) praised Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) for introducing legislation exempting highly educated, foreign-born students earning an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics from a U.S. university from the annual employment-based (EB) green card limit.

"The bill introduced by Senators Boxer and Gregg will help stop the exporting of America's intellectual seed corn," said SIIA President Ken Wasch. "These are some of the best and brightest young minds in the world, and they are being educated here in America. They want to work here and have a critical role to play in ensuring the continued growth and strength of American businesses."

"In the global economy, we simply can't afford to continue educating students in the U.S. and then sending them home to become our competitors," Wasch noted.

U.S. employers, particularly highly-innovative software and digital content companies, rely on EB green cards to keep much-needed and sought-after highly educated professionals working and innovating in America. Backlogs in the EB green card system are well documented, with some foreign-born highly educated professionals waiting more than 10 years to receive a permanent resident visa.

"There will be more than two million job openings in the software and information occupations between 2006 and 2016, according to a report SIIA issued this year," Wasch continued. "It is expected that there will be almost 450,000 openings for computer software engineers alone. Exporting highly educated students in the face of such demand is devastating for high tech innovation in the U.S. and undercuts America's economic standing in the world. We applaud Senators Boxer and Gregg for their legislation aimed addressing this situation and boosting American competitiveness."

This legislation is a companion to a bipartisan bill (H.R. 6039) that was introduced last month in the House of Representatives by Representatives Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Chris Cannon (R-UT).

For more information regarding SIIA's report on the economic impact of the software and information industries as referenced above, please visit: www.siia.net/govt.

About SIIA

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) is the principal trade association for the software and digital content industry. SIIA provides global services in government relations, business development, corporate education and intellectual property protection for more than 550 leading software and information companies. For further information, visit www.siia.net.

SOURCE Software & Information Industry Association