Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2877, a bill to add Ireland to the E-3 nonimmigrant visa program. In 2005, soon after the United States and Australia finalized the Australia-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, Congress created the E-3 visa program. That program provides up to 10,500 temporary visas for Australian nationals who are pre-approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to work in a specialty occupation for a sponsoring United States employer. A specialty occupation is one that requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in fields such as science, engineering, and research and development in emerging technologies. Since the program's inception, Australia has only ever used a fraction of the 10,500 E-3 visas that are available each year. For example, in fiscal year 2019, only 5,800 E-3 visas were issued to Australian nationals. H.R. 2877 does not increase the number of visas that may be issued, but instead allows Irish nationals to use any unused visas. That bill would take the number of E-3 visas that are left unused by Australia in a given fiscal year and make that same number of visas available to Irish nationals the following fiscal year. This is a commonsense bill that recognizes the important bond we share with two of our country's closest and most steadfast allies.…”