Zoe Lofgren

I introduced a bill a short while ago that addresses a whole multiplicity of issues, including the need to keep master's and Ph.D. students who can create jobs here.

But today we find ourselves on the other side of the drain. While we once asked the brightest minds in the world to come and make their homes here, we now turn them away.

It is a good package, and I would like to recommend it to all of you.

I think that this may be an opportunity where the 'battling bickersons' between the parties can come together and agree on some things, and I think that is a very hopeful thing.

These national qualities ensured that we were on the right side of the global brain drain that has been occurring for the last two centuries.

Yes, of course, you have to have the job offer. That is in the bill I have introduced as well.

It needs to be fixed.

I introduced the Immigration Driving Entrepreneurship in America Act, the IDEA Act of 2011, which includes a startup visa.

The tremendous success of immigrants in the tech world is something I know pretty well because my district is in Silicon Valley.

When it comes to taxes, we know that not only are taxes a source of revenue for government, which is necessary, but how we tax has an impact on what people do.

the taxes are really not well aligned with what our purpose is for the Internet.

I want to especially thank Mr. Franks, who is the principal cosponsor, for his cosponsorship but also for the hard work that he has put into this measure.

I think we have to act, and I am glad that we are doing so with such support across the Congress and on a bipartisan basis.

The question isn't whether we shouldn't consider remedies, but whether they are narrowly tailored to deal with a specific problem, and we won't have collateral damage.

I think this is an excellent hearing and it shows how complicated some of these issues are, and yet it is important that we deal with the challenges in a way that is serious but also works as a technical matter and also with an eye to our…

Now, rather than actually attempting to fix our broken immigration system, we are now holding the fourth hearing in a row on the exact same topic.

Completely ignoring these facts, some have tried to paint a very different picture of immigrants in America.

By pitting the foreign born against the native born, we are largely pitting one group of citizens against another.

Rather than focusing on the real issues that are weighing down those communities, the hearing sought to simply blame immigrants.

Whatever you may hear from the other side of the aisle, independent economists agree that immigration has generally improved the wages and job opportunities of U.S. workers.

We know that even in this economy, Americans are not returning to the fields.

We can agree that unscrupulous employers will exploit immigrant workers and undercut American workers, and that can't be.

But increased enforcement is exactly what we have been doing for 20 years, and everyone knows it isn't working.

Studies show that for every farm worker we deport, we may be deporting three other jobs held by Americans.

68 percent of voters favored allowing undocumented immigrants who are willing to pay taxes and obey the law to stay in the United States.