John Conyers: “Mr. Speaker, I plan to support this bill before us, even though it got out of the Senate only hours ago; yesterday…”

“Mr. Speaker, I plan to support this bill before us, even though it got out of the Senate only hours ago; yesterday sometime. The legislation before us today would adjust the H-1B visa cap to meet the immediate and critical needs of our high-technology economy. To tell the truth, the bill is a significant improvement to the committee-passed bill in the Judiciary, which would have imposed significant new restrictions that would have made it far more difficult for American employers to utilize the H-1B program. This enormous success of our American economy has, in large part, been driven by our information technology industry. As a matter of fact, the Department of Commerce estimates that more than 1.3 million technology workers will be needed over the next decade. Where are we going to get them? Ensuring that the United States has sufficient, qualified, high-technology personnel will be a critical determinant of the success of our national economy over the years to come. So I believe it is imperative that we add some temporary visas, that we provide for greater permanent visas, and that we attempt to educate our own citizens so that we can meet these needs.”