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During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) questioned witnesses about visa approvals.
Transcript
00:00Yes, ma'am.
00:01The first one is an article from NBC News entitled,
00:04Hundreds of International Doctors Due to Start Medical Residencies Are in Visa Limbo.
00:09And the second one is, because we've had so much conversation on overstays,
00:14it's the Homeland Security Fiscal Year 2023 Entry Exit Overstay Report
00:20that specifically says that the overstay rate is 1.02%.
00:25Without objection, admitted.
00:27The chair recognizes Representative Ross.
00:31Thank you, Mr. Chairman and the ranking member for holding this hearing.
00:36I'm going to try to overlap in a positive way with Mr. Van Drew
00:41and talk about what we need to enhance legal immigration.
00:46I am absolutely convinced that we can fix our immigration system
00:53to deal with illegal immigration, the overstay situation.
00:59Obviously, we're working on the border, but we can walk and chew gum at the same time.
01:03Both the chairman and I represent one of the fastest-growing areas in this country in North Carolina.
01:12Every day, and we just came back from being in our districts,
01:17I hear from the agriculture sector, largest sector, economic sector in North Carolina,
01:27the hospitality industry, the construction industry.
01:30We've talked about the medical industry, the research industry,
01:35that they need more workers, and they need to have people who can get their visas.
01:43They need better H-1B processing.
01:46They need better H-2B visa processing.
01:50They want to hire people who are legal.
01:54But we have a backlog.
01:56We have not increased many of these visa quotas in more than 30 years.
02:04People want to come into this area.
02:07We are growing.
02:08We have amazing institutions of higher education educating lots of people from the United States.
02:15I'm very big on increasing the pipeline from the United States.
02:18But as we've discussed, in North Carolina, there simply are not enough people for our growing economy.
02:26So increasing pathways to legal immigration is either the first or the second highest priority
02:35for the North Carolina Farm Bureau, the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce,
02:41the North Carolina Home Builders, our education institutions.
02:46So, Mr. Narasta, can you tell us how we could fix some of the problems that we're hearing with our visa system
02:58and expand opportunities for more of these people to get legal visas
03:06because these employers in my district and in my state who are generating all the economic prosperity
03:14want to do it the right way?
03:16The major problem with the legal immigration system in the U.S. is that it is far too restrictive.
03:22It is far too complicated.
03:24It is far too burdensome.
03:26It is the second most complicated portion of American law after the income tax.
03:30Now, I'm just a humble supporter of the free market.
03:33But I think that people should be able to go back and forth based on where they are demanded,
03:37where their opportunities are,
03:38where people want to buy and sell from them and to them.
03:43And I think that we need to expand these opportunities for low-skilled workers in areas like agriculture,
03:48but also create a visa for construction workers.
03:51I think we need to create a visa for manufacturing, for all different types,
03:54for every sector of the American economy, for mid-skilled workers,
03:58for people who are higher skilled, make it easier for them to come in,
04:02some of them temporarily, some of them permanently.
04:04I mean, but at a minimum, I think the thing that we can do is create a visa for entrepreneurs,
04:08which this country entirely lacks.
04:10I mean, that's a no-brainer here.
04:11That's the biggest no-brainer around.
04:13And Mr. Narasta, we've only touched on this.
04:16I have, ever since I got here, been one of the primary sponsors of a bipartisan bicameral bill
04:23to deal with what we call the documented dreamers,
04:26the children of H-1B visa holders who come over here before, you know, they weren't born here.
04:32Sometimes their siblings are U.S. citizens, but they are not.
04:37And they literally age out of their visas when they're 21 years old.
04:41And the backlog is so long that they will never be able to be able to get a visa or become a U.S. citizen.
04:49They're the children of highly educated people.
04:51Most of them are in college.
04:53We've paid for their education.
04:54And now we're deporting them to countries that we compete with.
04:59And what do you say to those documented dreamers who I've been fighting so hard for?
05:04You should be allowed to stay in the United States.
05:07You should be allowed to become an American citizen.
05:09You should be allowed to use your talents and your skills and your grit to do well here.
05:14The one thing we know about children doing well or how well they're going to do in life is it's related to their parents.
05:20And H-1Bs who come to the United States do extraordinarily well.
05:24They have above the 90th percentile in wages in the United States.
05:27So kids are going to do about as well as they do if we let them, if the government lets them succeed.
05:34And all we need to do is get out of their way.
05:36All we need to do is take the government out of this equation to legalize these folks and allow them to do what they want to do,
05:43which is to succeed and become Americans.
05:45Thank you, and I yield that.
05:46Thank you, Ms. Ross.
05:48The chair now recognizes myself for five minutes.
05:50Ms. Vaughn, one of my greatest frustrations is the conflating of illegal versus legal.
05:56No one up here is against legal.
05:58We all want to strengthen it.

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