In an effort to secure the economic competitiveness of Greater Philadelphia and region’s across the nation, the CEO Council for Growth (CEO Council) and Silicon Valley Leadership Group met yesterday in Washington with like-minded civic and business leaders across the nation to drum up support for high-skilled immigration reform. At the meeting were Members of Congress including Congressmen Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Patrick Meehan (R-PA).
The CEO Council for Growth and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group are founding members of the National Metropolitan Business Alliance, which is composed of 18 regional business associations from metropolitan regions across the country who are committed to advancing pro-entrepreneurship and pro-innovation public policy. Together, these regions account for more than 35 percent of the US GDP.
The meeting illustrated a strong understanding between Members of Congress and the business, civic, and higher education executives in the room on the need for high-skilled immigration reform and its impact on the economic vitality for the Greater Philadelphia region and region’s across the nation. Several of the attendees shared with Congressmen Andrews, Dent, and Meehan their organization’s specific need for reforms when looking to retain top-level talent educated in U.S. higher education institutions.
“Reforming our broken immigration system is crucial to the economic prosperity of our region,” said Congressman Meehan. “We need to get control of our borders and create an effective, legal immigration system. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss these issues with so many job-creators and innovators from our region.”
Those members of the CEO Council for Growth and Silicon Valley Leadership Group in attendance were encouraged to continue the same dialogue with other Members of their respective regional Congressional delegations and share with them their high-skilled immigration reform priorities in an effort to build broader support in Congress.
A number of Greater Philadelphia and Silicon Valley companies and organizations shared perspectives on the economic importance of immigration reform including: Aqua America Inc.; Bentley Systems, Incorporated; Decision Lens, Inc.; DocMunch; Enscient; Fortisure Consulting; Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce; Inadco; Insikt Venture; OPower; Rowan University; San José State University; SAP; Seagate Technology; Select Greater Philadelphia; Silicon Valley Bank; Silicon Valley Leadership Group; The Wistar Institute; ThinkTank Learning; Trimble Navigation; Unisys Corporation; University City Science Center; University of Pennsylvania; Verizon Communications; VoiceBunny; and the Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians.
“Sensible reforms – particularly those that enhance the attraction and retention of highly-skilled immigrants and foreign-workers – are vitally important for Greater Philadelphia businesses that are heavily invested in knowledge-based professions,” said Rob Wonderling, Chairman of the CEO Council for Growth and President & CEO of The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. “The CEO Council and its members look forward to working with Congress to enact these reforms, which will greatly benefit the economic competitiveness of the greater Philadelphia region as well as the nation as a whole.”
The CEO Council, which is led by business, higher education, and civic leaders within the tri-state, 11-county Greater Philadelphia region is calling on Congress to enact reforms to the nation’s high-skilled immigration system. They are urging members of Congress to support the following reforms, and to ensure that they are not weakened during the legislative process:
Establish a market-based H-1B cap and increase the employment-based green card cap;
Exempt STEM graduates from U.S. universities from the annual employment-based visa cap if they have an offer of employment from a U.S. business in a related field;
Streamline and improve visa and green card application process;
Eliminate the employment-based per-country visa cap;
Use new company-paid visa and green card fees to help fund STEM programs in U.S. schools to train the next generation American workforce; and
Provide visas and green cards to startup entrepreneurs and advance science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degree holders from U.S. universities.