If you’ve been concerned about the overabundance of talented people coming to America, don’t worry; our politicians are putting the issue to rest. Top Talent Could Lose Fast Track to U.S.:
For years, foreign-born Nobel Prize winners, corporate officers, and top talents in sports, arts and sciences have had a fast track to permanent residency, and eventually citizenship, in the United States. In the name of attracting the world’s greatest and brightest, authorities have granted these luminaries priority access to green cards under a little-known provision offered to “aliens of extraordinary abilities.”It has provided a way for a host of notable foreigners — among them John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Venezuelan-born New York Yankee Bobby Abreu — to make America their home.
But the bill now being debated in Congress would do away with the special “EB-1″ preferred-status category, effectively forcing foreign VIPs to take a number and get in line with everyone else. They would be subject to a complex point system to determine their eligibility — assessing education levels, English abilities, experience in the United States and other factors — just as any engineer from India or farmworker from Mexico.
[...]
Last year, 36,960 individuals and family members were granted “priority” permanent resident status under the “extraordinary abilities” category. Under the 100-point system established by the bill, “extraordinary or ordinary” ability in a specialized field would offer, at most, eight additional points to a candidate. That is less than the 10 points that would be awarded to applicants holding a two-year college degree.
Sigh.
The article presents “aliens of extraordinary abilities” as VIP celebrities, but then it goes on to note that 36,960 of them were granted priority last year. The EB-1 category is not simply for media darlings; it’s for Ph.D. scientists coming to teach at our universities and work at our corporations and government institutions.
The last thing we want is to set up hurdles for “aliens of extraordinary abilities” who want to come to the US.