EU THREATENS TO ATTRACT HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS
FROM AMERICA WITH NEW “BLUE CARD” PROGRAM
10.24.2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
EU THREATENS TO ATTRACT HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS
FROM AMERICA WITH NEW “BLUE CARD” PROGRAM
ITI Asks: Will US Congress rise to the challenge on high-skilled immigration?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Noting the European Union’s (EU) introduction of a “blue card” plan on Tuesday designed to attract high-skilled immigrants such as scientists and engineers, Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) Senior Vice President of Government Relations Ralph Hellmann today urged Congress to act quickly on high-skilled immigration reform that will maintain America’s leadership in the global innovation economy.
According to today’s New York Times, “similar to the green card program for foreign workers in the United States, the European plan seeks to draw an additional 20 million workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America in the next two decades. Officials said they hoped that the proposal would reverse a trend in which skilled migrants from developing countries were choosing the United States over Europe.”
“Europe has laid down a challenge to the United States Congress,” Hellmann said. “The EU will attract the best and brightest workers in the world if the United States continues to create new burdens to hiring these valuable workers.”
Hellmann added, “Unfortunately, since it appears comprehensive immigration reform is unlikely to occur in Congress until 2009, we cannot risk waiting another two years to start attracting these high-skilled workers to America.”
ABOUT ITI
The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) is a group of the nation's
leading high-tech companies and is recognized as the tech industry's most effective
lobbying organization in Washington. ITI helps member companies achieve
their policy objectives through building relationships with Members of Congress,
Administration officials, and foreign governments; organizing industry-wide
consensus on policy issues; and working to enact tech-friendly government policies.
###
ITI member companies include Accenture, Agilent Technologies, AMD, Apple, Applied Materials, Canon U.S.A., Cisco, ca, Corning, Dell, Eastman Kodak, eBay, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Lenovo, Lexmark, Micron, Microsoft, Monster, National Semiconductor, NCR, Oracle, Panasonic, SAP, Sony Electronics, Sun Microsystems, Symbol Technologies, Tektronix, Texas Instruments, Time Warner, Unisys, Verisign and Vonage.
|
