Jeff Bingaman: “let me just mention that this cap I am trying to put on is just for one of the categories vailable for people who want…”

“let me just mention that this cap I am trying to put on is just for one of the categories vailable for people who want to become legal permanent residents, and I need to underscore that. There is still the opportunity to become a legal permanent resident as part of this family preference category. That is 480,000 per year, and we are not in any way affecting that with my amendment. There is still the opportunity, if you are already here in this country and you have been here 2 years under this legislation and you are undocumented, you can go through the earned legalization provisions in the bill and become a legal permanent resident. We are not in any way affecting any of that or trying to limit that. If you are an agricultural worker, there are 1.5 million blue card agricultural workers who are provided with an opportunity to become legal permanent residents in this bill, but we are not in any way affecting that. There are various categories in the bill for highly skilled workers who are able to become legal permanent residents without being subject to any numerical cap. I have supported those provisions. I am not suggesting we put a cap on those provisions. These are highly skilled workers, in many cases people involved in science and engineering and other skills that are important to our economy. Of course, there is provided in the bill an additional estimated 141,000 visas which have been recaptured from the last 5 years because they were unused.…”