[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  ``WHY DON'T THEY JUST GET IN LINE?''
                     BARRIERS TO LEGAL IMMIGRATION

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP

                                 OF THE

                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                       WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-18

                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
         
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               Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
               
                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
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                       COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                    JERROLD NADLER, New York, Chair
                MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania, Vice-Chair

ZOE LOFGREN, California              JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Member
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee               LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas
HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,      DARRELL ISSA, California
    Georgia                          KEN BUCK, Colorado
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida          MATT GAETZ, Florida
KAREN BASS, California               MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana
HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York         ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
DAVID N. CICILLINE, Rhode Island     TOM McCLINTOCK, California
ERIC SWALWELL, California            W. GREG STEUBE, Florida
TED LIEU, California                 TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland               THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky
PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          CHIP ROY, Texas
VAL BUTLER DEMINGS, Florida          DAN BISHOP, North Carolina
J. LUIS CORREA, California           MICHELLE FISCHBACH, Minnesota
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin
JOE NEGUSE, Colorado                 CLIFF BENTZ, Oregon
LUCY McBATH, Georgia                 BURGESS OWENS, Utah
GREG STANTON, Arizona
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
MONDAIRE JONES, New York
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
CORI BUSH, Missouri

        PERRY APELBAUM, Majority Staff Director & Chief Counsel
              CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director 
                               
                               ------                                

              SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP

                     ZOE LOFGREN, California, Chair
                    JOE NEGUSE, Colorado, Vice-Chair

PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington          TOM McCLINTOCK, California, 
J. LUIS CORREA, California               Ranking Member
SYLVIA R. GARCIA, Texas              KEN BUCK, Colorado
VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas              ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas            TOM TIFFANY, Wisconsin
MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania       CHIP ROY, Texas
                                     VICTORIA SPARTZ, Indiana

                     BETSY LAWRENCE, Chief Counsel
                    ANDREA LOVING, Minority Counsel
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              

                       Wednesday, April 28, 2021

                                                                   Page

                           OPENING STATEMENTS

The Honorable Zoe Lofgren, Chair of the Subcommittee on 
  Immigration and Citizenship from the State of California.......     1
The Honorable Tom McClintock, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee 
  on Immigration and Citizenship from the State of California....     3
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, Chair of the Committee on the 
  Judiciary from the State of New York...........................     5

                               WITNESSES

John C. Yang, President and Executive Director, Asian Americans 
  Advancing Justice | AAJC
  Oral Testimony.................................................     7
  Prepared Statement.............................................     9
David J. Bier, Research Fellow, Cato Institute
  Oral Testimony.................................................    24
  Prepared Statement.............................................    26
Pareen Mhatre, Iowa City, IA
  Oral Testimony.................................................    40
  Prepared Statement.............................................    42
Robert Law, Director of Regulatory Affairs and Policy, Center for 
  Immigration Studies
  Oral Testimony.................................................    48
  Prepared Statement.............................................    50

          LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

An article entitled ``Immigrants Applying for Citizenship in 
  Houston Face High Wait Times,'' Houston Chronicle, submitted by 
  the Honorable Sylvia Garcia, a Member of the Subcommittee on 
  Immigration and Citizenship from the State of Texas for the 
  record.........................................................    74
Statement from Edgar Falcon, American Families United, submitted 
  by the Honorable Veronica Escobar, a Member of the Subcommittee 
  on Immigration and Citizenship from the State of Texas for the 
  record.........................................................    86
Items submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, Chair of the 
  Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship from the State of 
  California for the record
  A report entitled ``Immigrants are Vital to the U.S. Economy,'' 
    from the Joint Economic Committee............................   110
  Statement from a coalition of ASISTA, Asian Pacific Institute 
    on Gender-Based Violence (API-GBV), Casa de Esperanza, and 
    Tahirih Justice Center.......................................   122
  A report entitled ``Background and Barriers to Legal 
    Immigration,'' from the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC).......   127
  Statement from CASA, Gustavo Torres, Executive Director........   136
  Statement from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights 
    (CHIRLA).....................................................   139
  Statement from the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).....   143
  Statement from Immigration Voice...............................   148
  Statement from Improve The Dream...............................   152
  Statement from the Microsoft Corporation.......................   157
  Statement from the National Immigration Law Center (NILC)......   161
  Statement from the National Partnership for New Americans 
    (NPNA).......................................................   166
  Statement from the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and 
    Immigration..................................................   171
  Statement from the Public Defenders Coalition for Immigrant 
    Justice......................................................   176
  Statement from UnidosUS........................................   180
  Collection of Personal Statements From Members of Improve The 
    Dream........................................................   187
  Statement from Curtis Morrison and Rafael Urena, Attorneys at 
    Law..........................................................   202
  Statement from Dr. Kevin Kells.................................   205
  Statement from Erika Orrantia..................................   207
  Statement from Gilbert Loredo..................................   209
  Statement from Jason Rochester, International Brotherhood of 
    Teamsters....................................................   210
  Statement from Maz Rostamian, Founding Member--Director of 
    ``All Of Us''................................................   213
  Statement from Ramon Canaba, Jr., Retired Supervisory 
    Immigration Enforcement Agent, U.S. Immigration and Customs 
    Enforcement..................................................   229

                                APPENDIX

Statements submitted by the Honorable Zoe Lofgren, Chair of the 
  Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship from the State of 
  California for the record
  Statement from the Federation of Malayalee Associations of 
    America (FOMAA)..............................................   232
  Statement from the International Medical Graduate Taskforce....   233
  Statement from Save H4 EAD.....................................   237
  Statement from Worldwide ERC...................................   241
  Statement from the Association of Americans Resident Overseas 
    (AARO).......................................................   243
  Statement from Engine..........................................   244
Statement from the Honorable Shelia Jackson Lee, a Member of the 
  Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship from the State of 
  Texas for the record...........................................   248

 
                  ``WHY DON'T THEY JUST GET IN LINE?''.
                     BARRIERS TO LEGAL IMMIGRATION

                       Wednesday, April 28, 2021

                        House of Representatives

              Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship

                       Committee on the Judiciary

                             Washington, DC

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:12 p.m., via 
Webex, Hon. Zoe Lofgren [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Representatives Lofgren, Nadler, Jayapal, Correa, 
Garcia, Escobar, Jackson Lee, Scanlon, McClintock, Buck, Biggs, 
Roy, and Spartz.
    Staff Present: John Doty, Senior Advisor; Moh Sharma, 
Member Services and Outreach Advisor; Jordan Dashow, 
Professional Staff Member; Cierra Fontenot, Chief Clerk; John 
Williams, Parliamentarian; Betsy Lawrence, Chief Counsel; 
Joshua Breisblatt, Counsel; Anthony Valdez, Professional Staff 
Member; Ami Shah, Counsel.
    Ms. Lofgren. The Subcommittee on Immigration and 
Citizenship will now come to order, a quorum being present. 
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess 
of the Subcommittee at any time. We welcome everyone to this 
afternoon's hearing entitled, ``Why Don't They Just Get in 
Line? Barriers to Legal Immigration.''
    I'd like to remind Members that we've established an email 
address and distribution list dedicated to circulating 
exhibits, motions, or other written materials that Members want 
to offer as part of our hearing today. If Members would like to 
submit materials, please send them to the email address that 
has previously been distributed to your office, and circulation 
of the materials to Members and staff will be made as quickly 
as possible.
    I'd like to ask all Members to mute their microphones when 
you're not speaking, to prevent feedback and other technical 
issues. You can unmute yourself anytime you seek recognition.
    Finally, before we begin, I ask unanimous consent that our 
Judiciary Committee colleague, the gentlelady from North 
Carolina, Ms. Ross, be permitted to participate in today's 
Subcommittee hearing. Following the Committee's practice, Ms. 
Ross will be allowed to question the Witnesses if she is 
yielded time by one of the Members of the Subcommittee. I will 
now recognize myself for an opening statement.
    I'd like to welcome our Witnesses and the Members of the 
Immigration and Citizenship Subcommittee to today's hearing on 
barriers to legal immigration. Today, we'll explore the 
question, why don't they just get in line? For many, that 
question can be answered in one of two ways: For some, there 
simply is no line; and for others, the line is so long that 
they will never get to the front.
    The framework for our legal immigration system dates back 
to 1952 and 1965, and was last updated more than 30 years ago. 
In 1990, Congress established the worldwide numerical limits on 
immigrant visas that still exist today, as well as the so-
called per-country cap which further limits the number of visas 
that can be issued to nationals of any single foreign State. 
This outdated framework is now failing our Nation.
    Over the past three decades, the worldwide limits and per-
country cap have led to wait times that were unimaginable in 
1990. Today, an estimated 3.8 million individuals are waiting 
for a family-based immigrant visa, while approximately 1 
million individuals wait for employment-based visas. Because of 
the per-country cap, the wait times are particularly long for 
individuals for countries with higher populations and higher 
demand for visas such as India, China, and Mexico.
    For example, today it takes 23 years for an unmarried son 
or daughter of a U.S. citizen to receive a visa if they come 
from Mexico. As most family-based immigrants wait outside the 
United States for their visas to become available, families are 
forced to remain apart for decades.
    While most employment-based immigrants wait for a visa in 
the United States, the hardships associated with the backlog 
are different but still significant. The per-country cap has 
had a huge impact on families from India and China who are 
stuck in the backlog the longest, even though a person's 
nationality has nothing to do with their merit as an employee.
    For example, prospective employment-based immigrants can't 
switch jobs without a new employer agreeing to file a petition 
on their behalf. With limited mobility this can expose workers 
to substandard working conditions or prevent them from 
advancing up the professional ladder.
    Further, the children of employment-based immigrants who 
turn 21 before they reach the front of the line, age out of 
dependent status and often green card eligibility. Despite 
growing up here, to remain, they must independently qualify for 
status on their own. If they're unable to do so, they must 
return to a country that is quite literally foreign to them.
    On top of these very significant limitations, laws passed 
in 1996 that were intended to crack down on unlawful 
immigration by forcing those without status to return home 
have, instead, accomplished the opposite. IRCA established new 
bars to inadmissibility creating a difficult catch-22 situation 
for many who become eligible for a green card, but have 
accumulated unlawful presence.
    Certain individuals, including some spouses of U.S. 
citizens, are ineligible to apply for a green card in the 
United States, and instead must depart and apply to U.S. 
Consulate abroad. It is the Act of departing itself that 
triggers the bar for unlawful presence, which can keep families 
apart for at least 3 or 10 years, and, in some cases, 
permanently.
    Not surprisingly, rather than risk a lengthy separation, 
many families have, instead, chosen to remain together in the 
U.S. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, as 
of 2017, undocumented immigrants have lived in the United 
States an average of 15 years, up from just 7 years in 1959.
    AILA also made changes to restrict the discretion of 
immigration judges and adjudicators, making our immigration 
laws even less flexible. Some bars to admissibility can't be 
waived at all, even if the individual was very young when the 
Act occurred or lacked the knowledge or intent to violate the 
law. Laws that completely close off relief regardless of the 
underlying circumstances don't protect our country and impose 
needless hardships on American families by keeping them apart 
or their loved ones forever in the shadows.
    As lawmakers, it's incumbent upon us to fix those laws that 
don't well-serve the United States. I think that there are many 
aspects of these dated immigration laws that simply do not 
well-serve the United States of America, nor do they 
necessarily serve the purposes for which they were introduced.
    I'll just give an example of the 3- and 10-year bar. I 
remember the discussion so well. I was a Member of this 
Committee at the time, as was our Chair, and my colleague, 
Sheila Jackson Lee. Elton Gallegly, then a Congressman from 
California, and Lamar Smith, then a Congressman from Texas, 
promoted the idea of the 3- and 10-year bar as an effective 
remedy to unpermitted entry to the United States. It was only 
directed at those who were not inspected. It did not apply to 
those who overstayed their visa.
    We know, because from 1995 to today, there has been massive 
uninspected entry to the United States, that this effort to 
prevent that has simply failed. It serves no purpose today 
other than to frustrate the law itself which promotes American 
citizens being able to petition for their husbands and wives.
    It's now my pleasure to recognize the Ranking Member of the 
Subcommittee, the gentleman from California, Mr. McClintock, 
for his opening statement. Mr. McClintock.
    Mr. McClintock. Well, thank you, Madam Chair.
    If you'll recall, on March 4th, the Ranking Member of the 
Full Committee, Mr. Jordan, along with all six Republican 
Members of this Subcommittee, wrote to you requesting a hearing 
on the border crisis that's been caused by President Biden's 
decision to stop the MPP program, abandon the border wall, and 
to execute [inaudible] faithfully execute the laws of the 
United States.
    We received no response. On March 12th, I reiterated that 
request to you in a subsequent letter. Again, no response. I 
wish to make that request to you once again. The situation is 
deteriorating rapidly, and the implications for every American 
community that will soon see its schools heavily impacted by 
non-English-speaking students, its hospital emergency rooms 
filled with illegal aliens demanding basic health services, and 
its safety compromised as gangs proliferate, and as criminal 
illegal aliens are released into our neighborhoods rather than 
to be deported.
    Worse than ignoring this crisis, the majority seems to be 
working overtime to make it worse. In the last few weeks, the 
House has moved legislation to make it harder to keep 
terrorists out of the country, and harder to stop illegal 
drugs, weapons, and other contraband from breaching our ports 
of entry.
    Now, we're holding this hearing aimed at flooding the labor 
market with low-wage labor just at the time when working 
Americans are trying to regain the prosperity that they were 
enjoying under the Trump policies. Those policies secured our 
border, and for the first time in decades, the income gap 
between rich and poor began to narrow as blue-collar wages 
surged.
    Unemployment reached its lowest rate in 50 years, the 
poverty rate plunged to its lowest rate in 60 years, and wages 
recorded their strongest growth in 40 years. The labor 
participation rate began to increase after decades of decline 
as American workers, who had given up hope of work, began 
seizing opportunities.
    So, I hope the majority will listen very carefully to Mr. 
Law's testimony. He'll tell us how flooding the market with 
low-wage labor does enormous economic harm to working 
Americans. He destroys the myth that the programs like the H-1B 
and H-2B visas fill gaps in the American labor market. What 
they actually do is to allow employers to fill positions and 
wages substantially less than the domestic labor market would 
otherwise come in.
    Wealthy corporate interests get richer by paying less than 
the Americans require to do these jobs. Immigrant labor gets 
paid more than they could get in their own countries, and all 
this at the expense of working Americans whose wages stagnated 
for decades as the immigrant share of the population tripled. 
As Mr. Law points out, it is the blue-collar American workers 
who lose and lose big.
    I particularly want to note this passage from his 
testimony: There are no jobs Americans won't do. There are only 
wages and working conditions that they are not willing to 
accept for the work, nor should they. By refusing to offer 
higher wages or conditions to entice Americans to come to work 
for them, employers create a mirage of a labor shortage, and 
point to importing foreign workers as the only solution. 
Circling back to supply and demand, employers want to flood the 
market with labor supply to drive down wages. That's the game 
that they're playing.
    A particular note is the optional practical training 
program that allows foreign students to work here for 3 years 
after graduation. Unlike their American classmates, they're 
exempt from payroll taxes, making them much cheaper than 
American graduates to hire. If your family's recent college 
graduate can't find work, there's a simple reason.
    It's not that these policies put foreign workers at parity 
with American workers, they put American workers at a 
considerable disadvantage competing for jobs and market wages 
in their own country, and it's their own representatives that 
are doing this to you.
    The crisis at the border is beginning to awaken Americans 
that their futures are very much at stake. Their simple ability 
to make it in their own country is now being jeopardized by the 
officials that they trust. I think it's why some of my 
colleagues would rather virtue signal to each other about their 
charity for strangers in a strange land than to fix our open 
border and lax immigration laws so that we can restore the 
American Dream for American families.
    I yield back.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair of the Committee, Mr. Nadler, is now recognized 
for an opening statement.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    With today's hearing, we explore an aspect of the 
immigration system that is of great importance to millions of 
U.S. citizens and aspiring Americans: Barriers to legal 
immigration. It's important to remember that the immigration 
debate in this country does not start and stop at the southern 
border. We won't fix the system if we simply pump more money 
into border security, or an ineffective wall. To truly fix the 
system, we must update the legal immigration framework, and 
restore discretion to forge pathways to permanent residence and 
meet the needs of our country today.
    Currently, more than 1 million individuals are stuck in the 
employment-based immigrant visa backlog, and nearly 4 million 
are waiting for a family-based visa. These backlogs exist, and 
have grown longer each year, because our legal immigration 
system has been frozen in time since 1990. The impact of these 
long wait times can be devastating, particularly for those from 
high-demand countries who wait the longest.
    For example, today it takes nearly 25 years for certain 
family-based immigrants to receive a visa. That's a quarter of 
a century that many families must endure while separated from 
their loved ones. Many employee-based immigrants must wait well 
over a decade to reach the front of the immigrant visa line. 
Although most of these individuals live and work in the United 
States on temporary visas during that time, life-changing 
events can have serious consequences.
    For example, if the principal immigrant dies before a visa 
becomes available, a risk that has become all too real during 
the COVID-19 pandemic, the family Members will lose their 
temporary status and be forced to leave the United States. 
Similarly, children who turn 21 before reaching the front of 
the green card line age out of eligibility for dependent status 
and must find a way to qualify for status on their own.
    Our immigration laws are also particularly harsh for 
thousands of U.S. citizens whose spouses and children are 
virtually shut out of the system with no means of obtaining 
lawful status because of provisions that restrict or provide no 
discretionary waivers of inadmissibility or deportability and 
that provide arcane bars for unlawful presence.
    Because of policies like these, far too many families have 
been needlessly and cruelly separated for years. For example, 
my constituent, Dr. Kevin Kells, has lived apart from his wife 
for over 15 years. In 1998, before they met, Dr. Kells' wife 
traveled to the United States to attend a high school 
graduation party. She did not speak English, but the driver of 
her car told the border officer that she was born in the United 
States. Her record now shows that she made a false claim to 
U.S. citizenship, and she is permanently barred from the United 
States.
    For Dr. Kells and his wife, there is no line to obtain a 
green card or legal status, nor are there options for many 
others, given the limited discretion of immigration judges and 
officers to waive the consequences of past acts, even those 
that were based on honest mistakes made decades ago.
    I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on the 
impacts of the outdated immigration system and the reforms that 
are needed to ensure the system works for, not against, 
American families and businesses. I thank the Chair, Ms. 
Lofgren, for her leadership on this issue and for holding this 
important hearing. I yield back the balance of my time.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman yields back.
    It's my understanding that the Ranking Member, Mr. Jordan, 
does not wish to make an opening statement. If that's 
incorrect, he should speak up now. If not, we will certainly 
welcome his submission of a statement for the record.
    It's now my pleasure to introduce today's Witnesses. John 
Yang is the President and Executive Director of Asian Americans 
Advancing Justice. In 1997, Mr. Yang cofounded the Asian-
Pacific American Legal Resource Center, a nonprofit 
organization dedicated to addressing the needs of Asian-Pacific 
Americans in the DC metropolitan area.
    Previously, Mr. Yang was a partner with a law firm Wiley 
Rein, LLP, and worked in Shanghai, China for a U.S. Fortune 200 
company. Mr. Yang received his J.D. from George Washington 
University Law School.
    David Bier is a Research Fellow for immigration studies at 
the Cato Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research 
organization. Mr. Bier has nearly a decade of immigration 
policy research working with the Niskanen Center and the 
Competitive Enterprise Institute, in addition to the CATO 
Institute.
    From 2013-2015, Mr. Bier served as a Senior Policy Adviser 
for Congressman Raul Labrador, then a Member of this Committee, 
and later Chair of this Subcommittee.
    Pareen Mhatre is a student of biomedical engineering at the 
University of Iowa. Ms. Mhatre came to the United States when 
she was 4 months old as a dependent on her mother's student 
visa and has lived here ever since with her parents. Last 
month, Ms. Mhatre turned 21, and aged out of her H-4 status. 
Because of the immigrant visa backlog, she is now at risk of 
separation from both her family and the only country she has 
ever known.
    Finally, Robert Law, who is the Director of Regulatory 
Affairs and Policy for the Center for Immigration Studies. From 
2017-2021, Mr. Law served first as Senior Policy Adviser, and 
later as Chief of Office Policy and Strategy at U.S. 
Citizenship and Immigration Services. He has a bachelor's 
degree from the University of Virginia, and a J.D. from the 
Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law.
    Now, we welcome all our distinguished Witnesses. We thank 
them for participating in today's hearing, and, as is 
customary, I would like to swear in all our Witnesses. Please, 
each of you, turn on your video and audio and make sure I can 
see your face, and your raised right hand, while I administer 
the oath.
    Do you swear under penalty--or affirm, under penalty of 
perjury that the testimony, you are about to give is true and 
correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, 
so help you God? Please say yes. Yes, I do.
    It is noted that all our Witnesses have taken this oath. 
Please note that your testimony, your full written statement, 
will be made part of the record in its entirety, and we do 
accordingly ask you to summarize your testimony in about 5 
minutes. To help you keep track of that time, there is a timer 
on your screen, and we ask that you be attentive to it.
    We will begin with you, Mr. Yang. Please help us with your 
testimony.

                   TESTIMOMY OF JOHN C. YANG

    Mr. Yang. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Chair 
Lofgren, Ranking Member McClintock, Committee Chair Nadler, and 
all the Members of the Committee. I appreciate this opportunity 
to testify before all of you.
    Asian Americans are acutely aware of the injustice of 
living in and contributing to the United States economy and 
society by always being treated as a so-called perpetual 
foreigner. This concept has been enshrined in our laws at 
different times with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the 
incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent during World War 
II.
    As such, we advocate for citizenship for all people who 
live and work permanently here in the United States. It should 
not be lost that two-thirds of the Asian-American population 
here in the United States are immigrants, that of our 
immigrants, about 75 percent of the Asian-American immigrants 
in recent years come through based on family-based visas, and 
that about 40 percent of the current immigrants to the United 
States come from Asia.
    Now, these immigrants come through family-based system, 
others did come through humanitarian, employment-based or 
diversity visas and then they sponsor family Members. The 
family system creates a built-in safety net for new immigrants. 
Those who came before them helped new immigrants' relatives 
find housing and jobs, learn English, successfully navigate a 
foreign system to them, and eventually become United States 
citizens and participate in our democracy.
    Together, families pull capital and labor to buy homes, 
start businesses, and create jobs. Immigrants accounted for 30 
percent of all new entrepreneurs in 2014, despite only 
comprising only 13 percent of the United States population. 
Caretakers, who are predominantly women, do unpaid and 
undervalued work that enables their family Members to work 
outside the home. Our system is also in need of serious reform.
    There are three basic answers to the question in the title 
of today's hearing, which is ``Why don't they just get in 
line?'' and some of this has been answered.
    First, there is simply no line for some of our immigrants. 
Many undocumented people and nonimmigrant visa holders simply 
do not qualify for any existing immigrant pathways even though 
they were invited here by our government, or they are here out 
of status through no fault of their own. There are very few 
employment visas available for lesser-skilled workers in labor 
markets that desperately need workers, and even those with a 
college degree.
    Second, many immigrants are in line, but those lines are 
far too long and snake around several blocks. There are around 
4 million recorded family Members in line for green cards under 
the family-based system even though that system, as a practical 
matter, only has approximately 226,000 family-based visas 
allocated per year.
    The employment-based system is no different. As several 
Members noted, there are approximately 1 million people waiting 
in that backlog, even though there are only about 140,000 
employments-based visas allocated per year.
    Years of bureaucratic processing delays, these low 
numerical limits, country caps, and Congress' inability to Act 
and update the system to keep up with population growth and 
labor market needs, has resulted in these extreme backlogs in 
the green card programs, and some families wait for decades to 
be reunited with their loved ones.
    Look, and let's be clear, such long family separations are 
harmful to families. People make life choices, including 
foregoing marriages or education while they wait in these 
lines, if they have a line at all. They have children abroad 
who could've started their education here in the United States 
rather than transitioning at an older age.
    These delays are contrary to U.S. interests and, where 
possible, we should encourage them to immigrate in their youth, 
so they can invest in English, education, and job skills to be 
successful.
    Over half of the 1.1 million new green cards issued 
annually go to people that are already living in the United 
States, and the U.S. has not updated the family-based 
immigration system, nor increased the annual number allocation 
in over 30 years despite the fact that our U.S. population has 
increased and is aging.
    It's not lost on us that the Census Bureau just yesterday 
announced that we had the lowest growth here in the United 
States since the 1930s at 7.4 percent. So, in order for our 
population to grow and survive and prosper, we do need more 
immigrants in the system.
    Finally, undocumented immigrants face other barriers to 
adjusting their status. There are estimated 1.4 million 
undocumented immigrants with U.S. citizen or legal permanent 
resident spouses, and 3.4 million undocumented immigrants with 
a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident child.
    Finally, they face barriers to inadmissibility, as was 
noted, the most notable being the 3- and 10-year bars. The 
solution is easy, and that's why Advancing Justice, AAJC, 
advocates for the passage of Congresswoman Chu's Reuniting 
Families Act, Congresswoman Linda Sa'nchez's U.S. Citizenship 
Act, in whole or in part, to solve these problems. These 
provisions will create reasonable lines that we need to ensure 
a vital America in the future.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Yang follows:]
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    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Yang.
    Now, we would be happy to invite Mr. Bier for your 
testimony. Welcome.

                   TESTIMOMY OF DAVID J. BIER

    Mr. Bier. Chair Lofgren, Ranking Member McClintock, and 
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for this 
opportunity. After having worked as Senior Policy Adviser for a 
Member and Vice Chair of this important Subcommittee, it is an 
honor to be invited back to explain the challenges that 
America's legal immigrants face.
    The simple answer to the question that this hearing poses, 
why don't immigrants get in line, is that immigrants cannot 
legally get into line, that is, apply for legal permanent 
residence on their own. U.S. legal immigration is based almost 
exclusively on selection or sponsorship by the U.S. Government, 
U.S. families, employers, or other sponsors. Thus, the question 
could be restated: Why can't Americans let immigrants get into 
the line? The answer to this question is that the government 
effectively bans us from doing so.
    Today, the only immigrants who can immigrate permanently 
from abroad without numerical limits are the spouses, minor 
children, and parents sponsored by adult U.S. citizens. All 
other permanent immigration from abroad is either capped or 
illegal, and the four capped categories aren't realistic 
options for nearly all would-be immigrants.
    First, is the diversity visa lottery which selects 55,000 
immigrants from a pool of generally over 20 million applicants, 
a 0.2 percent chance; second, is the refugee program, which 
currently select just 15,000 refugees from nearly 20 million 
refugees worldwide, even worse odds; third, other family 
sponsored categories for only the closest relatives of U.S. 
citizens and legal permanent residents, and here, the caps have 
created a backlog of nearly 4 million applicants, with many new 
applicants facing near 100-year wait times; and fourth, 
employer-sponsored immigration. Foreign employees also face a 
hard cap, also set by Congress in 1990, and half of that cap 
ends up being used by their spouses and minor children.
    Indian immigrants bear nearly the full burden of the low 
overall employer-sponsored caps as a result of the per-country 
caps, which limit immigrants from any single birthplace to no 
more than 7 percent of the green cards issued. Indians are 
about half the applicants, which means they end up being about 
90 percent of those in the backlog. At the current rate of 
issuances, it would take a new Indian applicant applying today 
with a master's degree or less, at least 84 years to receive a 
green card.
    During this time, nearly 200,000 Indians already in line 
today would die waiting, even assuming that they could stay in 
line that long. Another 100,000 of their minor children already 
waiting with them right now will age out of eligibility for 
green cards based on their parents' application when they turn 
21 and lose their chance at permanent residence altogether.
    Even if you're not from India, it's effectively impossible 
to obtain employer sponsorship for permanent residence while 
you're not already in the country. This is because the 
government takes between 2-3 years to process a case abroad. 
That's far too long to fill an open position, and the result is 
that almost all employer-sponsored immigrants must first obtain 
an H-1B temporary work visa, come here and work for their 
employers while the permanent residence process unfolds.
    This is challenging for workers with college degrees 
because the cap on the H-1B visa is just 85,000, and employers 
petitioned for about 275,000 applicants last year. For workers 
without a college degree, it's effectively impossible. There's 
no year-round temporary work visa for them at all, so they are 
shut out. That is it. Four options to obtain permanent 
residence from abroad, and none are realistic for those 
crossing the border.
    When immigration is illegal, no one can claim surprise at 
illegal immigration. The U.S. immigration system is far more 
constrained today than in its past. Before 1924, the U.S. 
allowed an annual rate of legal immigration as a share of its 
population, more than double any recent year. Many years during 
that time the rates were five times higher. That was when the 
U.S. system had a viable line that most immigrants were 
presumptively eligible for. Today, we have few eligible 
categories, arbitrary caps, and endless waits. We can do 
better.
    Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The statement of Mr. Bier follows:]
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    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you very much.
    Next, we will hear from Ms. Mhatre. Ms. Mhatre, you are 
welcome to join us with your statement for 5 minutes.

                   TESTIMOMY OF PAREEN MHATRE

    Ms. Mhatre. Chair Nadler, Chair Lofgren, Ranking Member 
McClintock, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for 
giving me the opportunity to share my story with you today. My 
name is Pareen Mhatre. I'm currently a third-year biomedical 
engineering student minoring in business Administration at the 
University of Iowa.
    I'm also a member of Improve The Dream, a youth-led 
advocacy organization bringing awareness for more than 200,000 
children of long-term visa holders who face self-deportation, 
even though we have grown up in the United States with a 
documented status. I am one of these children. I am a 
documented Dreamer.
    I was born in India, and my parents brought me to 
Cincinnati, Ohio, when I was 4 months old, in August 2000, as a 
dependent on my mother's student visa. After a year, we moved 
to Iowa City, Iowa. My parents completed multiple degrees at 
the University of Iowa, and both parents started to work for 
the university. My status changed to an H-4 dependent visa in 
2008, and my parents' employer filed for a green card in 2012.
    I was enrolled in the Iowa City Community School district 
from K-12. Having lived in this country for virtually my whole 
life, my roots are here in Iowa, and I am a Midwesterner. As I 
grew up, I volunteered for many organizations in my community, 
including the public library and the local hospital. I've been 
part of teams that have competed in various STEM and student 
journalism competitions at both State and national levels.
    During my time at school, at every step of the way, I 
formed relationships with teachers and students that have had a 
lifelong impact on me. Ms. Riepe in elementary school, guided 
me to lead. Mr. Norton, in middle school, gave me the 
confidence in my math skills that would allow me to choose 
engineering as my major. Mr. Gross, in high school encouraged 
me to speak up on unjust issues.
    Over the past 21 years, my parents and I have received help 
and love from many wonderful people of this country, and we are 
very grateful for it. At the same time, our hearts break when 
we think of my future immigration status and that of many other 
documented Dreamers. Due to the uncertainty of my situation, I 
have been in constant fear for the past 5 years.
    Despite living here my whole life and having, very 
literally, grown up on my university campus, I am considered an 
international student. After spending nearly my entire life 
here, I am encountering the same hurdles as newly arrived 
international students.
    I am now a junior at the University of Iowa. My future goal 
is to work in the STEM field to contribute to advancements in 
medical devices. However, due to my status, the inability to 
obtain internships has limited me in terms of acquiring the 
professional experiences for my goals.
    For the past 9 months, I've been awaiting approval for the 
change of status to F-1 students. I also turned 21 less than 2 
weeks ago, so I no longer have dependent status. I aged out of 
the system. Unless my application is approved, I am not allowed 
to enroll in classes in future semesters.
    As a result of the barriers and the daily worry of my 
situation, I have been diagnosed with clinical depression, 
generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. I've been 
seeing a therapist for more than a year, because I've reached a 
point where I could not cope alone, and I needed help.
    If my application is denied, I will be immediately out of 
status and will need to self-deport. My family will be torn 
apart and our American Dream will vanish even though I am an 
Iowan and American at heart.
    Even if my application is approved, the odds are against 
people like me. After completing my education, I would need to 
obtain my own H-1B visa to be able to [inaudible], but only 31 
percent of applicants were selected in 2020. Even after going 
through the entire employment-based green card process, I will 
be at the back of the line. People say, just get in line and 
apply for citizenship. The truth is, there is no viable line 
for me and the thousands of documented Dreamers.
    My journey might sound unique, but more than 200,000 
children share my story. Anagh will age out and face self-
deportation in 9 months. Hudi (ph) will face deportation in 7 
months. Trishdy (ph) will face self-deportation in 5 months. 
Members of Improve The Dream are grateful for our voice being 
recognized with our inclusion in the recently passed Dream and 
Promise Act.
    Chair Lofgren, we are extremely thankful to you for this 
positive change, and hope that going forward, all solutions for 
Dreamers will include documented Dreamers like us. However, we 
hope that this Committee will also work to permanently end 
aging out and address the root causes of this issue.
    Chair Nadler, Chair Lofgren, and Ranking Member McClintock 
and the Members of the Subcommittee, please consider the 
thousands of children and families who have had hopes in 
pursuing the American Dream, but are being torn apart, despite 
maintaining a documented status. This land of the free, this 
beautiful and generous Nation is our home. I hope you can 
improve the dream for all of us who only want a chance at the 
American Dream.
    Thank you so much for your time today, and I look forward 
to answering any questions you may have.
    [The statement of Ms. Mhatre follows:]
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    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Ms. Mhatre. We will actually make 
an inquiry of the Department about the status of your 
application. I don't understand why you have not heard back, so 
hopefully, that will help get an answer to you.
    Now, we will turn to Mr. Law for your 5 minutes of 
testimony. Welcome, sir.

                    TESTIMOMY OF ROBERT LAW

    Mr. Law. Thank you. While the topic of our Nation's lawful 
immigration system and the impact it has on the wages and job 
opportunities for Americans is an important one, a sovereign 
Nation must enforce the laws on the books, otherwise the rules 
become moot. The ongoing and worsening crisis at the southern 
border should temper consideration of any expansive legal 
immigration reforms.
    The United States is the greatest country in the world, so 
it is unsurprising that billions of people from around the 
globe would relocate to America if they could. This presents a 
binary policy choice: Either allow unlimited immigration or set 
annual numerical limits. Unlimited immigration is not feasible 
and numerical limits or caps are not barriers, but instead, the 
rules under which our legal immigration system operates.
    Because the American people are the true stakeholders in 
U.S. immigration policy, the system should not operate in a way 
that harms American workers. Every year, the United States 
awards 1 million new green cards, and allows in approximately 
700,000 temporary foreign workers, generally without any 
analysis of whether there is any significant economic or labor 
need.
    There is ample evidence that the current high levels of 
legal immigration, both permanent and temporary, negatively 
affect the wages and opportunities for certain Americans. With 
our predominantly family-based immigration system, only about 
15 percent of green cards are awarded in a given fiscal year on 
the basis of merit. The result is that an overwhelming number 
of immigrants, including those who subsequently become 
naturalized U.S. citizens, are less educated and lower skilled 
than the general native-born American population.
    Though this is not a reason to cast a negative light on any 
of these aliens, we should, however, consider whether we are 
adequately addressing the problems of U.S. citizens, education, 
unemployment, poverty, before welcoming even more people who 
are likely to struggle with the same issues.
    The oversupply of workers at the bottom of the labor market 
reduces wages and job opportunities for Americans at that 
level. Specifically, the Americans who lose out due to mass 
immigration tend to be those without a college degree, 
including African Americans and other minorities, the young, 
and the disabled. These Americans are usually the last to enter 
the workforce during an economic boom, and the first to be let 
go during economic downturns.
    On the other hand, lower wages translate to higher incomes 
for business executives and larger profits for corporations. 
The rich get richer, immigrants receive higher wages than they 
would for the same work in the home country, and lower-skilled 
Americans disproportionately suffer.
    As the National Academy of Sciences found in 2016, the 
lower wages paid to immigrant workers translates to 
approximately $54 billion a year in lost income for 
marginalized American workers. Put another way, mass low-
skilled immigration fuels income inequality and causes 
significant wealth transfer from blue-collar Americans.
    A common refrain from businesses and proponents of high 
levels of immigration is that our country needs immigrants 
because there are supposedly jobs that Americans will not do. 
The data clearly refutes that, with only 6 of 474 unique 
occupations being majority immigrant. This flawed premise 
should be dispensed with, as Chair Nadler himself said during 
an October 2017 immigration bill markup.
    Or consider these words from Jared Bernstein, former Chief 
Economic Adviser to then-Vice President Biden, quote, 
``Employers are very quick to raise the specter of a labor 
shortage, but often it's another way of saying they can't find 
the workers they want at the price they're paying. They are 
unwilling to meet the price signal the market is sending so 
they seek help in the form of a spigot like immigration,'' end 
quote.
    Due to mass legal immigration, Pew reports that the real 
wages of noncollege-educated Americans have stagnated or 
declined over the past 40 years. It took a decade for wages of 
hourly workers to return to pre-Great Recession levels, and 
American workers across the board still have not recovered from 
the crippling effects of the economic downturn caused by COVID-
19. It is not unreasonable to wonder if these marginalized 
Americans will ever recover with government policies that flood 
the labor market with cheap foreign labor.
    In closing, I note that the mid 1990s Jordan Commission, 
named after former Congresswoman and civil rights icon Barbara 
Jordan, warned about all this, quote, ``Immigration policy must 
protect U.S. workers against unfair competition from foreign 
workers with an appropriately higher level of protection to the 
most vulnerable in our society,'' end quote.
    One last quote, ``The Commission is particularly concerned 
about the impact of immigration on the most disadvantaged 
within our already resident society, inner-city youth, racial 
and ethnic minorities, and recent immigrants who have not yet 
adjusted to life in the U.S.,'' end quote. It is long past time 
for Congress to heed the recommendations of the Jordan 
Commission. Thank you.
    [The statement of Mr. Law follows:]
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    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. Thanks to all our Witnesses for 
your testimony. Now is the time when Members of the 
Subcommittee can ask questions of the Witnesses for up to 5 
minutes. I'll turn first to the Ranking Member, Mr. McClintock, 
for his questions. Mr. McClintock, you are recognized.
    Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Mr. Law, to hear the Democratic witnesses, immigration 
slowed to a trickle. Yet, you pointed out that currently, the 
United States issues over 1 million green cards per year and 
over 43 million immigrants was able to obtain lawful permanent 
residency status since the 1965 Act. You point out in your 
written testimony that the number of immigrants in the United 
States has gone from 9.6 million in 1970 to 44.9 million in 
2019, a nearly 4\1/2\-fold increase.
    You point out that the immigrant share of U.S. population 
has nearly tripled over this time period from 4.7 percent to 13 
percent, and that the United States admits more immigrants per 
year with a path to citizenship than the rest of the world 
combined. That doesn't sound like a trickle to me. What am I 
missing?
    Mr. Law. Thank you, sir. No, the only trickle, of course, 
would be this last year which, of course, the entire world shut 
down due to COVID-19. Any suggestion otherwise that immigration 
has been shut out, more specifically, within the Trump 
Administration, is simply not true.
    During the previous Administration, legal immigration, 
meaning green cards, continued to average just slightly over 1 
million a year. That has been consistent with more recent 
historical norms. Any form of temporary worker programs, such 
as the aforementioned H-1B or H-2B programs, those caps have 
been met. In fact, the H-2B supplemental authority that 
Congress delegated was utilized numerous times by prospective 
DHS Secretaries. So, it's just simply not true. It's 
intellectually dishonest to suggest that legal immigration was 
shut out at any time under the Trump Administration.
    Mr. McClintock. Well, we have heard about long wait times. 
Now, Gallup polling estimates that from their polling data, 
just in Latin America and the Caribbean, there are 42 million 
people wanting to come to the United States, let alone from the 
rest of the world. Aren't the wait lists the national 
consequence of the simple fact that not everybody who wants to 
come to the United States can come to the United States?
    Mr. Law. Yes, thank you. As I mentioned in my opening 
remarks, we're really posed with just two choices: You either 
have unlimited immigration, which our country legitimately 
cannot sustain. Our borders cannot contain the entire world's 
population, and as great of a Nation as we are, it's 
unsurprising that everybody would want to come here. We don't 
have the space and we certainly don't have the economy to cover 
everybody.
    Regarding the green cards, so, therefore, we have 
respective limits that Congress has set in place. When there is 
a higher demand than there is the available amount of green 
cards, there is not a backlog as has been often 
mischaracterized. It is, in fact, a wait list. That's exactly 
what that means. You have to wait until your number becomes 
available. A backlog suggests basically government ineptitude 
in delayed processing.
    There's no amount of expeditious processing that the 
government could do to approve all the green cards, 
particularly for what is called the oversubscribed nations. 
There is a limit that Congress has put in place, and for those 
who aren't able to get in because of those limits, they simply 
are just waiting their turn. It's not a backlog. It is a wait 
list, and that distinction is very critical to understand.
    Mr. McClintock. The per-country cap on green cards, without 
that, wouldn't it mean that the largest countries would then 
claim all the slots? Isn't a per-country cap designed assure 
that citizens of every country have a shot at those slots?
    Mr. Law. Absolutely. The 1952 immigration system had a 
national origin quota system that we did away with in the 1965 
Act. Having per-country caps was a very thoughtful decision 
that said, we value diversity in our immigrant population. We 
don't want populous countries or large-sending countries to 
capture all the green cards at the expense of nationals from 
every other country in the world. In recent--go ahead.
    Mr. McClintock. I was going to say, we heard one Democratic 
Witness recommend that we start by removing the per-country 
limits, but ultimately, we should remove the worldwide limits--
all the worldwide limits on family and employment-based 
immigration entirely. What would that mean for working American 
families?
    Mr. Law. I mean, if we were to disregard all forms of 
immigration limits and the entire world's population came to 
the United States, there are very few Americans that would find 
themselves employed, or certainly having the same types of 
wages and opportunities that they currently have. I mean, it's 
simple supply and demand.
    With respect to the per-country caps, while it does appear, 
just by a quick reading of the statute, to be limited to 7 
percent, there is actually a carve-out provision that when the 
lower-sending countries don't utilize their allotment, higher-
sending countries do get more of that.
    When it comes to India, they are currently getting 25 
percent of the green cards available in a given fiscal year. If 
you disregard per-country caps, Indian nationals will take at 
least 90 percent of the green cards for the next decade. What 
that means is, you don't have diversity in the immigrant 
population, and you have now injected waits to everybody else 
in the world just to cater to one particular population.
    Mr. McClintock. I see my time is expired. Thank you very 
much for your testimony.
    Mr. Law. Thank you.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman yields back.
    The Chair of the Committee, Mr. Nadler, is now recognized 
for 5 minutes.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Mr. Bier, in 1996, Congress enacted what has become known 
as the 3- and 10-year bars. You discussed in your testimony how 
harsh these bars are, how limited the waivers are, and the 
impact they have on millions of individuals. Can you discuss in 
more detail just how these bars work and why, in your view, 
they need to be replaced?
    Mr. Bier. Thank you for that question. Under the bars, 
anyone with a year of illegal presence in the United States 
cannot reenter the country legally for 10 years, and this is 
essentially one of the most counterproductive enforcement 
measures that Congress has ever enacted.
    As a result of the bars, if someone is trying to get right 
with the law, and that should be the goal of our immigration 
enforcement system, is that we should have a process for people 
to correct the mistakes that they made, and go home and get an 
immigrant visa and come back. Under this system, you are barred 
even if you are eligible for status, which means, you have 
created an incentive in the law to continue to maintain illegal 
presence in this country, and not return home and correct your 
mistake.
    So, what we've seen is people stay, despite being eligible 
for a green card, many of them end up being deported, and then 
you're subject to a permanent bar on reentry. Then you have a 
situation today, right now, where Border Patrol is apprehending 
tens of thousands of parents of U.S. citizens who are crossing 
the border illegally, even though they could be eligible for a 
green card if not for the bars that the law subjects them to.
    So, it has completely backfired, and it hasn't worked out 
at all how the authors of that law expected it to.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Mr. Yang, in your opening statement, you discuss the need 
to protect and reform family-based immigration, which has been 
the bedrock of our immigration system since 1965. Can you 
discuss some of the obstacles that U.S. citizens and green card 
holders face when they try to sponsor family Members through 
our legal immigration system?
    Mr. Yang. Thank you for that question, Chair Nadler. The 
main obstacle is with respect to the wait times. Because of the 
limited number of family-based visas that are available, family 
Members end up--United States citizens trying to sponsor family 
Members often have to wait several years, if not decades, for 
them to be able to bring over their family Members. If you're 
talking about nationals from Mexico, Philippines, India, China, 
or the Philippines, those waits could be upwards of 20 years or 
more.
    Now, why is that important? Because we want to unify family 
Members here in the United States to provide that social safety 
network for those people to prosper. Those people are doing any 
sort of different, oftentimes undervalued work to help 
Americans succeed in business, to help Americans create 
businesses, help Americans to innovate.
    That's why the family-based immigration system works, 
because it creates that entire network that values how our 
system is constructed, and values all of these different pieces 
that aren't simply based on merit, or based on existing wealth 
that would contribute to the American economy.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Ms. Mhatre, can you describe to the Subcommittee what you 
want to do with your degree in biomedical engineering if you're 
able to stay in the United States and obtain a green card?
    Ms. Mhatre. Thank you for that question. Like I stated, I 
would like to help improve the healthcare system by advancing 
medical devices, and, most importantly, I want to give back to 
the community that has supported me and my family for the past 
almost 21 years now. I realized I wanted to do this because of 
my volunteering experience at the hospital.
    I was not only exposed to the hospital environment, but 
also to the way physicians use various types of equipment and 
devices to treat patients, and I want to use this experience, 
and as well as my degree, to help contribute to these 
advancements in the medical field, and hopefully help increase 
the quality of life for patients and just be a productive 
member of the society.
    Chair Nadler. Thank you.
    Madam Chair, I yield back.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman yields back.
    Mr. Buck would be next, but I think he has had to step 
away, so we will turn to Mr. Biggs for his questions. Mr. 
Biggs, you're recognized.
    Mr. Biggs. I thank the Chair for recognizing me and 
appreciate all our Witnesses being here.
    I am, however, once again, disappointed that we're not 
having a hearing on the actual border crisis. While legal 
immigration is important to our country, the most important 
issue, in my opinion, that this Subcommittee should be 
addressing is the border security.
    The current crisis was created by the Biden Administration 
and our Democrat friends in Congress. President Biden ended 
successful policies and programs that were put in place by the 
Trump Administration, and then brought the southern border 
under operational control, generally. Democrats in Congress 
continue to promise amnesty to those who have broken our laws. 
They continue to provide incentives and draws for people from 
all over the world to enter our country illegally.
    When it comes to legal immigration, we're the most generous 
Nation in the world, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. For 
instance, in fiscal year 2020, more than 700,000 people 
received a green card, and more than 620,000 individuals were 
naturalized. In fiscal year 2019, more than 1 million 
individuals received green cards, and more than 840,000 
individuals were naturalized.
    In fiscal year 2019, there were more than 186 million 
nonimmigrant alien admissions to the United States. That 
included over 440,000 H-2A visa admissions, and over 129,000 H-
2B admissions and over 1.8 million student admissions. 
According to USCIS data, as of September 30, 2019, there were 
more than 583,000 aliens authorized to work in the United 
States under the H-1B visa classification.
    By any stretch of the imagination, by any rational look at 
this, you cannot say that the United States is squeezing out 
immigrants, when instead, we're the most generous Nation in the 
world for immigration. So, Mr. Law, my first question is for 
you. What impact would reinstating the MPP have on the current 
crisis?
    Mr. Law. Thank you. MPP was one of the--or remain in 
Mexico, as it is sometimes referred to as--was one of the most 
visionary aspects of the Trump Administration's efforts to 
control the border and deter fraudulent, frivolous, and 
otherwise nonmeritorious asylum claims filed by economic 
migrants. The way that MPP works is if you are inadmissible, 
you must wait in Mexico if you are non-Mexican until you have 
your court hearing.
    The number one goal of economic migrants is to simply be 
let into the country, at which point they oftentimes disappear, 
or, in many cases, are actually given work permits while they 
wait out their court dates. Very few of them actually meet the 
statutory requirement of the humanitarian protection that we 
call asylum, so MPP actually does control the border.
    Mr. Biggs. So, Mr. Law, how many aliens are currently in 
the United States waiting their asylum claim to be adjudicated 
by USCIS or EOIR?
    Mr. Law. Thank you, sir. It's my understanding, based off 
of the fiscal year 2021 refugee report that the State 
Department submitted, which takes into account and recognizes 
that our humanitarian efforts are both refugee from abroad and 
asylum here at home, and we have to address both. That USCIS 
has approximately 598,000 asylum applications that they are 
dealing with, and that EOIR for the Department of Justice has 
approximately 549,000 on their docket.
    Mr. Biggs. So, what percentage of aliens who actually 
express fear at the border ultimately file an asylum claim?
    Mr. Law. So, this is an important point. The claiming of 
credible fear tends to have been the ticket into the country. 
That does not mean that you are granted asylum, it just means 
you have met the first threshold. Once that claim has been 
made, only 62 percent are subsequently turning around and 
actually seeking in this country.
    Mr. Biggs. So, in 20 years--in fiscal year 2020 through 
quarter three, what percentage actually was adjudicated as 
having a credible fear claim?
    Mr. Law. Credible fear is a rather higher number. Then when 
you look at actual asylum grants, which is it the more 
important measure, it's only approximately 15 percent.
    Mr. Biggs. Right, and I have got--that's, roughly, right 
all the way back to fiscal year 2013. What happens to those 
whose claims are not granted?
    Mr. Law. Well, oftentimes, they are not removed from this 
country. They should be. Just given the sheer volume of it, and 
the limited enforcement resources that ICE has, very, very few 
actually get removed. That, again, just further complicates the 
system and just fuels the next caravan of economic migrants.
    Mr. Biggs. I see my time has expired. I thank the 
gentlelady. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. The gentlelady from Washington, Ms. 
Jayapal, is now recognized.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to our 
Witnesses for being here today. I am here today as the only 
Member of this Committee to actually have been on an F1 student 
visa.
    When I was 16 years old, my parents sent me by myself with 
their last $5,000 so that I could get the best education and 
the most opportunities here in the United States. It was a 
tremendous sacrifice for them, and we still live on different 
continents. I spent a good chunk of my life on an alphabet soup 
of visas.
    After I graduated from college, I transitioned to a 
practical training visa, and then back to a student visa for 
graduate school, and then to an H-1B visa before eventually 
obtaining legal permanent resident status or a green card 
through marriage to a U.S. citizen.
    My journey to citizenship, like so many other immigrants, 
was almost thwarted entirely by life. In 1995, I received a 2-
year fellowship to go back to my birth country of India. To 
maintain my green card, I had to return to the United States 
once a year. I carefully planned the timing so that I could 
return home to the United States for the final trimester of my 
pregnancy, and be within those rules, but then I developed a 
leak in my amniotic sack that endangered the life of both me 
and my child.
    I had an emergency C-section at 26\1/2\ weeks in India and 
spent months at my child's bedside in the ICU, praying and 
doing everything I could for their survival. That also meant I 
was unable to return to the United States within my year 
window, and I lost my legal status, even though my husband and 
now my child were both U.S. citizens.
    The then-Immigration and Naturalization Service was not 
concerned with the real-life decision I had to make to stay in 
India for the safety of me and my child when it revoked my 
legal status, and it was only after enormous advocacy from my 
family and my fellowship that I was able to get my permanent 
resident status reinstated and reenter the country with my 
family, only to have to start from scratch with my green card, 
and wait another 3 years to get my citizenship.
    Once I finally became a citizen after 17 years of living in 
the United States, I desperately wanted to bring my parents 
here to be with me and their grandchild. They were elderly, and 
it was unfair to uproot them from their community, especially 
with the additional time it would take to join me through 
family sponsorship.
    I tell this story because it is really important that we 
think about how tough our immigration system is to navigate, 
and how families are kept apart, and how this story, just like 
the stories of our Witnesses today, are just a few of the many 
stories that are out there.
    So, is Ms. Mhatre, thank you for being here today and for 
sharing your story; one that is all too common and very 
heartbreaking. Now, I understand that you have aged out of 
eligibility for an
H-4 visa, the visa for spouses and children of H-1B visa 
holders. Can you just quickly share why that visa was so 
critical to you and your family?
    Ms. Mhatre. Thank you for your question, Congresswoman. The 
H-4--the dependent visa is the only thing that's kept me and my 
family together for 21 years. I have been in the United States 
since I have been 4 months old. I have gone to school here. My 
parents and I have built a life here in our community. So, it 
was really terrifying to think about the fact that once I 
turned 21, I would lose my H-4 visa, and there was a chance 
that I couldn't be on the same continent as my parents. This 
feeling is still pertinent today.
    Because I have aged out, I don't know if my applications 
will be approved. My future is really uncertain. I may have to 
leave the only place I call home.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Mr. Bier, can someone like Ms. 
Mhatre follow all the rules and still lose their H-1 status?
    Mr. Bier. Absolutely. Losing your H-4 status is built into 
being a dependent of an H-1B worker. As soon as you turn age 
21, you can lose your status. Ultimately, this is a component 
of the immigration system throughout. You can lose your status 
even if you do everything right. We have seen in recent months 
how 91,000 spouses who are on an H-4 visa also lose their 
status and lose their work authorization because of delays at 
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. So, we already 
talked about how these delays are impacting individuals. At the 
end of the day, many people are losing status in this country, 
despite following every Rule laid out for them in the law.
    Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Very quickly, Mr. Yang. In December 
alone, women accounted for over 85 percent of jobs lost, and 
Black, Hispanic, and Asian women accounted for all women's jobs 
lost that month. How does the experience of the H-4 workforce 
fit into this, and why is it so particularly devastating right 
now?
    Mr. Yang. Thank you for that question. Very briefly, 95 
percent of H-4 visa holders are women, and at least 98 percent 
of them come from Asian countries. Because of some of these 
bureaucratic delays, as well as the COVID-19 problem, some of 
them have fallen out of status. If that results in a job loss 
to get back into the economy, and at the level that they were, 
they're losing literally a year or 2 years in their ability to 
be promoted and succeed in the business environment.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady's time has expired. We will now 
turn to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Roy, for his questions.
    Mr. Roy. Well, I thank the Chair. Can you hear me okay, 
Madam Chair?
    Ms. Lofgren. Yes, I can.
    Mr. Roy. Okay. I am in front of this building hear in Texas 
between events, and so I apologize. Hopefully, my signal stays 
strong. I appreciate all the guests here today joining us, all 
the Witnesses, and the opportunity to have this hearing. The 
one question that I have--and I think that my friend from 
Arizona, Mr. Biggs, raised one of these questions. Mr. Law, I 
think you and he had an exchange along these lines. I want to 
make sure I heard it correctly. How many people are in the 
United States right now, legally, we are admitting over a 
million people a year. Is that correct?
    Mr. Law. That's correct. One million permanent resident 
green cardholders a year.
    Mr. Roy. How long have we been at, roughly, that clip? I 
mean, by my account, it means somewhere close to a decade. Is 
that right? I mean, certainly, 5 years or more?
    Mr. Law. It's longer than a decade. Probably going on close 
to 20 years. There's only been a few years where the numbers 
were lower than 1 million a year, and they were still in the 
high 800,000s or low 900,000s. None of those years, of course, 
occurred under the Trump Administration. So, this notion that 
legal immigration was shut down is just completely not 
intellectually honest.
    Mr. Roy. Right. So, putting aside for a moment some of the 
issues my colleagues are raising--and all of which we all want 
an immigration system that works smoothly. I've had numerous 
friends over the years who have sought, tried to come to the 
United States. I had a teammate of mine at the University of 
Virginia, who was the first Black to win the South African 
Open. It was a big deal in golf, as you can imagine, post-
apartheid South Africa. He and some of my other friends, and 
another friend from Zimbabwe were trying to get into the 
country. It was all very difficult for my friends.
    Your point, I think that is important, is that we still 
have a million-plus who are coming into our country every year. 
Do you know, Mr. Law, how many people are admitted to other 
countries around the world each year? That's a big question. I 
realize that. Do you have any idea?
    Mr. Law. Sure, so I don't have an itemized breakdown, but 
it's my understanding that the rest of the world combined 
offers what is equivalent of our green card or permanent 
immigration status. Combined it is less than what we do on an 
actualized basis.
    Mr. Roy. Yeah, and I actually would love the answer to that 
from you or any of the other Witnesses at the end of this 
hearing. I will ask my staff to look at it, but I don't have 
the exact number. It's something like that, right? I mean, I'm 
not trying to minimize the importance of perfecting our 
immigration system. The point of Mr. Biggs was in welcoming a 
million people legally a year in the United States of America.
    Meanwhile, to the best of my understanding, correct me if 
these numbers are correct, we had 170,000 in March along our 
southern border, about a little over 100,000 in February, 
another 70-something thousand in January, and we're waiting on 
the April numbers right as the month of April here winds down, 
we'll get the April numbers. We're pushing upward of half a 
million for over the first 4 weeks of this calendar year. Does 
that sound right in terms of apprehensions at our southern 
border?
    Mr. Law. I lost you a little bit, but I believe if you are 
referencing the border apprehension numbers, yes, it was 
roughly, I believe, 78,000 in January, up to 101,000 in 
February, which is a 15-year high, and then it ballooned to 
172,000 in March. All bucking the historical trend of border 
apprehensions going down at this time a year.
    Mr. Roy. Right. I believe we will be pushing half a million 
here by the end of April. We'll see what the numbers are for 
April when we get that report. Also, that does not account from 
what we call got-aways. Right? It doesn't account for the 
people coming in between the ports of entry or between who are 
getting through at the ports of entry. For example, in the Del 
Rio Sector alone, we know there were in the last month in 
March, there was 26,000 cameras had caught movement of activity 
of individuals moving across the border of 26,000. That's just 
the Del Rio Sector. In other words, there are certainly tens of 
thousands of people that are able to get into our country 
between the ports of entry and illegally not being apprehended. 
Do you understand that to be correct?
    Mr. Law. That's correct. You will never truly understand 
what the real denominator is because some are captured by 
camera, as you referenced, others are just simply missed and 
are particularly good at coming across the border. So, yes, the 
border apprehension is just a snapshot of overall larger, 
illegal alien population coming across the border.
    Mr. Roy. Okay. Madam Chair, I don't have a clock ticker on 
my thing, but I want to be mindful of time. I don't know where 
I am for the 5 minutes.
    Ms. Lofgren. Your time is up.
    Mr. Bier. Congresswoman, could I answer your question 
really quick about the share of immigrants that come to the 
United States out of the share of all immigrants? Because it's 
actually only 10 percent of all immigrants worldwide come to 
the United States in the last 10 years. So, 10 times as many 
immigrants are going to other countries than are coming to the 
United States. So, it's not correct that the United States 
allows more immigrants here than the rest of the world 
combined. That's just not correct.
    Mr. Roy. Okay. Well, we can get back--Mr. Bier, we can get 
that number. I think what my point was going to be, whatever 
the number is, we bring in a substantial portion of the 
immigrants around the world of 7-point X billion people around 
the world. We have a substantial portion of that coming into 
the United States. I would like to know if you can confirm the 
number on that? As you said, maybe we have 10 percent, and that 
means 10 million are immigrating into the country, and we have 
a million of them. Okay. That's fine. I will accept that. We'll 
go look it up. My main point is when we say we're kicking the 
lion's share. I would look to then see that list compared to 
every other country, itemized country by country. I would like 
to know then what that means in terms of overall burden and 
costs of us having a system to do all that. I think these are 
important questions for us to understand.
    The only other question I have for Mr. Law, and I will wind 
down.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentleman's time has expired, so if you 
could wrap up.
    I don't want to cut you off prematurely, but your time has 
expired, so let's wrap it up quickly, if you could.
    Mr. Roy. Okay. Understood, and I appreciate that 
graciousness. Quick question, Mr. Law. Do you believe it to be 
true that the increase in illegal immigration under the power 
of the cartels in our southern border is hampering legal 
immigration? Because the cartels are looking to funnel their 
traffic through their operations versus our normal legal paths?
    Mr. Law. That is a complicated question, in a short amount 
of time I go over. Typically, the whole situation of border and 
immigration system, they interplay against each other, their 
burdens, we give and take on the whole thing. Any activity that 
encourages cartels and coyote behavior is problematic.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. The gentleman's time has more than 
expired.
    Mr. Roy. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Ms. Lofgren. We will turn now to Mr. Correa for his 
questions. Lou, it is your time.
    Mr. Correa. Can you hear me okay, Madam Chair?
    Ms. Lofgren. Yes, we can, Lou. Go ahead.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you very much. First, let me thank you 
for holding this most important. I want to thank our Witnesses 
for being here today. Let me say that hearing this discussion 
reminds me of the debate we have been having 40-50 years, maybe 
100 years throughout the history of this country.
    At the end of the day, we are a country of immigrants, I 
don't think there's any other place in the world that you can 
point to and say you are a country of immigrants. A little 
secret here, essentially, we're all riffraff. We've all come to 
this country because our own country didn't want us there, so 
that's why we came to America with nothing but our dreams and 
our ability to work hard.
    Mr. Bier, I wanted to talk a little bit about the labor 
stats, because about a year ago, I got a call from a lobbyist 
representing the poultry business. He was calling me because I 
was in this Committee and wanted my help. He told me a story 
where down in Deep South, 600 poultry workers had gotten 
deported, bringing the whole poultry industry, the whole county 
to a standstill, the economy. He told me, he said, ``Lou, we 
can't get workers.'' He said, ``It's not about wages.'' He 
said, ``they're all Members of the food and commercial--United 
Food and Commercial Workers Union. We just can't get people to 
come in and do these jobs.''
    You think about the comments that we make today, and I 
guess you look at numbers, and you can do whatever you want to 
do with numbers. In California, the fifth largest economy in 
the world, heavily dependent on immigrants, skilled and 
unskilled.
    We are going through a pandemic. We talk about the 
unemployment numbers. I went out there and I visited farm 
workers, working under in what we could call dangerous 
conditions. Nonetheless, they were working to feed us under 
these conditions. You look at Silicon Valley, the 
pharmaceutical industry, the medical device industry, what 
would we do without skilled and unskilled workers? Do we have a 
labor shortage in this country? What is going on? Do these 
immigrants hurt Americans? Please, Mr. Bier.
    Mr. Bier. No, they absolutely do not hurt Americans. It was 
said that there's no job an American won't do. That's certainly 
true. When it comes to farm labor, meat and poultry processing, 
and other industries, there is no unemployed Americans who are 
seeking out these jobs.
    In fact, a study was done of farm workers in North 
Carolina, for example. At the height of the recession in North 
Carolina in 2011, there were more than 500,000 unemployed North 
Carolinians. The H-2A program advertised to those jobs at the 
prevailing wage for multiple months to those unemployed 
Americans. And only 7 of those applicants, U.S. workers, 
actually came on and stayed throughout the entire season. So, 
there is a need for foreign workers to come in and fill some of 
these slots.
    Under the H-2B program, we see the same thing. We have 
100,000 labor-certified, Department of Labor-certified 
positions that are unfilled right now that need workers, and 
yet, we're hearing that we don't have any way to get them into 
the country. So, it's a major issue right now. Right now, some 
of the numbers are out of date. Today, we have more open jobs 
in this country than before the start of the pandemic.
    So, yes, unemployment is high, but, guess what, we're still 
in the middle of the pandemic. Many people are still afraid to 
go out to work. Immigrants are willing to go out and work these 
jobs, and we should let them, because it's harmful to our 
economy not to allow it.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you, Mr. Bier. Very quickly, Ms. Mhatre, 
I wanted to ask you, you're an individual that America needs. 
You come, you educate yourself in the STEM area, a scientist 
and healthcare worker. These are the areas that America has the 
edge on technology. We make the best pharmaceuticals, the best 
medical instruments, and the best medicine. This is where I see 
your role. The doctors at the local hospital--a lot of them are 
immigrants. Yet, we have this issue of not letting you into a 
country. Why in God's name would we take somebody smart like 
you, intelligent like you, give you all this education, all 
this training, and then tell you, thank you very much, thank 
you, but go away, we don't want you anymore? I just think it's 
crazy. What do you think? Could you enhance our country with 
your skills? Thank you.
    Ms. Mhatre. Thank you so much for your kind words. I just 
want to say I am very grateful for the opportunities that I 
have that my university has given me. However, it hurts when I 
am not able to fulfill my goals or give back to the community 
that has done so much for me.
    Mr. Correa. Thank you.
    Ms. Lofgren. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired. 
Ms. Spartz is next, but the rules require, Ms. Spartz, for your 
camera to be on. Could you please turn on your camera and be 
recognized for your questions? Ms. Spartz? There you are. You 
are now recognized.
    Ms. Spartz. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's 
a very important conversation, and I appreciate you having this 
conversation. As a legal immigrant myself, I truly believe 
would have a lot of work to improve our legal immigration 
system, improve our legal infrastructure, and, also, look at 
how we can really streamline some of the policies that better 
serve our country and provide less bureaucracy, including maybe 
some visa policy and work visa policies. There is a lot of work 
to do in this area. It's also important that we have a secure 
border with--we have a border policy and the issue with 
national security.
    So, I think it's important for us to have this 
conversation. So, it seems to me that we don't have it very 
often, and we don't have it in a productive way. So, hopefully, 
our Committee can work on it because it's not--you cannot 
resolve all this with religious--do it in one bill.
    So, my question is going to be related to--I can ask, 
several of you, if any can volunteer from our panel people, 
what is some things you believe that Republicans and Democrats 
can agree on that we can provide, streamline legal immigration 
system, provide border security, and national security on the 
border? If there is any place we can find a common ground, or 
we can never--because it seems like I am frustrated as a lot of 
people.
    We have been discussing for years, and I am sure Madam 
Chair has been on this Committee for a long time, but nothing 
happens. We keep discussing and we keep discussing. I will be 
honest with you what's happening on the border, it breaks my 
heart. It's a very disturbing situation. It didn't happen 
overnight, but it's escalated recently.
    So, we have to have good policy. We have to be able to work 
as a branch, and then work and put pressure on the Executive 
Branch to actually get stuff done and work with us. So, anyone 
on the Committee wants to mention just quickly what do you 
think? Do you think there is hope that something can be done?
    Ms. Lofgren. Ms. Spartz, if I could interrupt. Last 
Congress, 365 Members of the House voted to make adjustments on 
the per country cap limitation, not to eliminate it completely. 
So, it was a huge bipartisan vote in the House. The Senate 
mucked it up. That was an example of bipartisan effort. Ms. 
Buck was the principal who--
    Ms. Spartz. Maybe we need to work better. I have a visa 
policy, it's all right. I have a problem. It should be. We 
actually represented the people that represent the State. I 
don't know, we have Mr. Roy and he has worked a lot of policy 
issues. Do you want to mention something? Do you think there is 
something that can actually happen and have somethings that can 
be decided by the President?
    Mr. Law. Yeah, thank you. First, we should absolutely fix 
the TVTRA and Florida settlement loopholes in the law. Even 
President Obama back in 2014 pleaded with Congress to do that, 
and Congress failed to act. If we do not enforce our laws and 
remove the incentives for economic migrants and other 
vulnerable people to put themselves in harm's way through 
coyotes and drug cartels to come here when they don't have a 
mechanism, other than just coming across the border, we have 
got to stop that. You have got to cut off this link to the 
cartels.
    Unfortunately, regarding the per country caps, while, yes, 
it did pass with a broad bipartisan support, I think there's 
fundamental misunderstanding about what that bill does. It 
would be a train wreck to the legal immigration system, and, 
frankly, it would reward those in the tech industry, in 
particular, who have replaced and displaced American workers by 
utilizing the H-1B program first, which does not require you to 
actually seek out Americans first. They only petition for 
Indian males to overload the system, because there is no per 
country cap on H-1B, Congress can fuse the whole system by 
creating this concept of dual intent where you can have both 
nonimmigrant, meaning temporary, and immigrant, meaning 
permanent, intend at the same time.
    The blending of those two things together has unfortunately 
created a mess that is too often just destroying the system. 
Frankly, that is why the per country caps are in place. We need 
to have clear distinctions between permanent immigration and 
temporary immigration, which is why things like alien and 
immigrant are important legal terms because those distinctions 
matter very much.
    Ms. Spartz. I yield back. If you have a second, if you can 
maybe something quickly. Madam Chair, if you can allow me a 
couple of seconds.
    Ms. Lofgren. Of course. The gentlelady yields back. I 
appreciate her question. We now turn to Ms. Garcia for her 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Garcia. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all 
the Witnesses that are here today, and, Madam Chair, for 
holding this critical hearing. When it comes to immigration 
issues, as you said, everyone always asks, why don't they just 
get in line like everybody else? The truth of the matter is, is 
there is no everybody else, because of the unduly burdensome 
barriers to immigration that make it impossible to whether 
there's no general purpose line, or as one of the Witnesses 
said, there is a lot of waits everywhere.
    Like many of my colleagues have called for confident 
immigration reform for many, many years. Today, we have before 
us a lot of questions that are being asked about wait lists, 
backlogs, because the reality is that USCIS provides on its 
website that the estimated time range is 5-17 months of 
processing time for an immigrant who applies for a green card 
at the Texas Service Center. Not long ago, the national average 
processing time for citizenship had increased by 80 percent. 
Here in Houston, the median wait time was 14 months over a 
year, and processing could take up 25 months. That's two years. 
What's more is that number of immigrant visa cases pending 
interviews at the National Visa Center increased by 473,000.
    While green card wait times were already at a steep rise, 
COVID-19 has made it worse, the surge to unprecedented levels. 
So, the bottom line is, we need change, and we need it now.
    I want to start with you, Mr. Bier, we have said over and 
over, and I think a couple of colleagues have even used the 
word, we are the most generous country in the world on 
immigration. Can you really give us some context in light of 
the many barriers for pathways into really getting there? I 
know they keep talking about these 1 million green cards. The 
truth is, 65 percent of those were based on a green card going 
to a relative. So, just quickly, some of the barriers, and I 
would like the 1-minute mark, Madam Chair, yielded to my 
colleague, Ms. Ross, for a question.
    Mr. Bier. Ultimately, if you don't have a family member in 
the United States, and you don't have a college degree, you are 
pretty much shut out of the immigration system in the United 
States. We have a system that basically assigns people by 
random lottery that you have almost no chance of winning. We 
are one of the largest countries in the world. We are the third 
largest country in the world. So, the idea that 1 million 
should sound impressive to anyone, it is just not that 
impressive. It's 1 million out of 330 million people. That's 
less than \1/3\ of a percent of our population.
    Overall, compared to other countries, controlling for the 
population size, we rank 61st in the world for our foreign-born 
share of the population. We're bottom third among wealthy 
countries. We're fourth in last among OECD countries for 
employment-based immigration. We're not even in the top 50 
countries worldwide for refugee and asylum intake per capita. 
Even if the U.S. increased its legal immigration system five-
fold for the next decade, we still wouldn't have a foreign-born 
share of the population equal to the share in Australia, 
Canada, New Zealand, or Switzerland. So, the idea that the 
United States is letting in some absurd number of people that's 
totally abnormal for a developed country is just not true.
    Ms. Lofgren. Ms. Garcia, you have a minute and 11 seconds. 
Do you wish to yield to Ms. Ross now?
    Ms. Garcia. If I can put a document in the record. It's 
called, Immigrants Applying for Citizenship in Houston Face 
High Wait Times.
    Ms. Lofgren. Without objection, that will be made a part of 
the record.
    [The information follows:]
   
                       MS. GARCIA FOR THE RECORD

=======================================================================

[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Ms. Lofgren. Ms. Ross, you are recognized.
    Ms. Ross. Thank you so much, Congressperson Garcia and 
Chair Lofgren. I am honored to be here and make this visit to 
your Subcommittee, because I want to advocate for documented 
Dreamers like Ms. Mhatre, and her colleagues that improve the 
dream.
    My district in the research triangle area of North Carolina 
depend on highly skilled, highly educated foreign workers to 
fill jobs in technology and biotech. These workers bring their 
families to my district, build their lives here, and make our 
communities better. Our economy is booming because of them. So, 
I want to thank you, Ms. Mhatre. I want to thank you, and I 
want to thank your family. We need these workers and their 
families to help our Nation maintain its status as a world 
leader in innovation. I will close just by saying if you want 
to go to a Committee that can really agree on the need for 
these workers, come to the Science, Space, and Technology 
Committee because we want you to stay in our country, and we 
welcome you. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady, Ms. Garcia yields back. Now, I 
am pleased to recognize the gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Escobar.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I am so 
grateful for this hearing and for this opportunity. I want to 
just say a few things before I ask my question. What we're 
seeing today and have seen for years at the southern border in 
safe and secure communities like my own is, unfortunately, the 
consequence of America's failed approach to immigration. For 
decades, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on 
hardening our border, on costly ineffective walls, and during 
the past Administration, using cruelty as a deterrent.
    At the same time, our country has limited, and in the eyes 
of many, essentially eliminated legal pathways. So, we 
shouldn't be at all surprised that as legal pathways shrink, 
irregular or undocumented immigration grows. What we should 
have learned by now is that the shortsighted approaches of the 
past not only do not work, but they dehumanize immigrants and 
they debase us.
    I frequently hear my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle cynically say that they support legal immigration. Yet, 
they say this knowing full well that those legal pathways have 
continued to shrink and for many are nonexistent.
    At the beginning of this hearing, we heard the Ranking 
Member preach that we should continue the same failed 
approaches of the past. I will recount that old saying for him, 
that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over 
and over again.
    It's long past time that we recognize that immigrants are 
in that positive for our economy. After the results from the 
Census Bureau, recently, we should recognize that we need them.
    I want to take a moment to highlight the story of how we 
have eliminated pathways for people. One of my constituents 
Edgar Falcon, has been living the reality of permanent family 
separation for the last decade. Edgar, a U.S. citizen, met his 
now wife in Ciudad Juarez Chihuahua. His wife later applied for 
a visa and was denied over an incident that occurred when she 
was a teenager. An adult took her to a port of entry and 
encouraged her to present false documents to enter the United 
States. This decision she made as a child resulted in a 
permanent bar to accessibility. There are no waivers for a 
situation like this, and, therefore, no forgiveness.
    Edgar has been splitting his time between El Paso and 
Ciudad Juarez where his wife and daughter live, but they can't 
be together. Edgar is 1 of 1.3 million U.S. citizens whose 
families have been permanently separated over a denied spousal 
visa, or the removal of a spouse from the country. I ask 
unanimous consent to enter Edgar's statement into the record.
    Ms. Lofgren. Without objection, the material will be in the 
record.
    [The information follows:]
   

                       MS. ESCOBAR FOR THE RECORD

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[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Ms. Escobar. Thank you, Madam Chair, I will be 
reintroducing the American Families United Act this week, a 
bill that will help families like Edgar's, and I hope my 
colleagues will cosponsor.
    Mr. Bier, I really was so interested in the Cato 
Institute's survey polling results that you provided us this 
week. I want to get back to something that you talked about and 
something that we're grappling with, the visa backlogs in our 
immigration system. What would a more efficient system look 
like? What should Congress do to begin to address this issue?
    Mr. Bier. As the Chair said, the most important thing is 
fairness in the system. So, everyone should be treated equally 
without regard to their birthplace. Ultimately, Congress does 
need to address the fact that there are not enough green cards 
for the demand from around the world. We need these people. So, 
ultimately, we need to create a flexible immigration system 
that evolves with our economy and society.
    So, the idea that we should have a hard cap on the number 
of employment-based green cards makes no sense in a modern 
economy with demand that could change overnight. A new industry 
could be born tomorrow. We don't even know what it is. Yet, 
we're deciding in Congress right now how many green cards we're 
going to have 10 years from now?
    We're dealing with a cap that's 30 years old, and yet, the 
idea that we can't make any tweaks to that magical number makes 
no sense, no economist would agree with it. It's really 
counterproductive.
    So, I would argue we need a flexible cap, or have the cap 
eliminated entirely, because every single person that we're 
keeping out would be a huge asset to our economy right now.
    Ms. Escobar. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Mr. 
Bier, I want to follow up with you beyond this hearing to 
continue this conversation.
    I will just close, there was a mention of intellectual 
dishonesty earlier by Mr. Law, when he and my colleague, one of 
my colleagues, Mr. Roy, were talking about border encounters 
and apprehensions. We need to talk about this honestly. Those 
numbers, just for the public's sake, include numbers of 
recidivists. In other words, policies in place, like title 42 
that cause people to attempt multiple times to come into our 
country.
    So, those numbers sound--they're intended to sound scary to 
folks, but they don't reflect adequately what is truly 
happening. Madam Speaker, I yield back.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady yields back. The other 
gentlelady from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, is now recognized.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Madam Chair, thank you, and to the Ranking 
Member, thank you so very much. I would almost say for some of 
us, this is down memory lane. A memory lane that we wish we did 
not have to repeat. I am grateful that we are moving forward. I 
would like to really think that there is light at the end of 
the tunnel. So, let me thank all the Witnesses, first, for 
their testimony.
    Let me share some thoughts. Madam Chair, I am not seeing 
the 5 minutes. So, please forgive me. I am just going to try to 
move as quickly as possible. I do want to get this particular 
information into the record. Texas immigrants that are in our 
particular State, 43,500 homes in Texas, and pay $240,500,000 
annual mortgage payments, and their households contribute 2 
trillion--$2,234,800,000 in Federal taxes, and $1,265,000 in 
State and local taxes, just for our information, and as well, 
$10 billion in spending power in Texas. That's just in Texas. I 
imagine we can repeat some of these numbers all over the 
Nation.
    So, these immigrants, by the way, come from all over the 
world. Houston has found itself, and Harris County is one of 
the most diverse cities in the Nation. Our friends from 
Southeast Asia, Latinx, Hispanic, from Africa, in particular, 
as well. Each having their individual--from the Mid-East, from 
Iran, from various other places in the Mid-East, from Israel. 
Immigrants come from everywhere contributing their own talents.
    I am wondering why there is such an apprehension and fear. 
So, I am going to raise my questions in that context, if I 
might. Congressperson Escobar has moved me to be able to speak 
of a Palestinian family that I worked with immediately after 9/
11. They had a loss in their family. By the way, they owned a 
flag store. The flag store was making American flags. There 
were nine Members, and most of children had been born in the 
United States. That's how long they had been--and their 
youngest child as well. They had a death in their community. 
The block that they lived on, there were many Muslims coming, 
and they were tired. They might have been praying out and 
around because of the loss, in their family, a Muslim loss. 
They were saying their prayers.
    So, a neighbor called the authorities and said terrorists 
were gathering for a meeting. This was right after 9/11. I 
understand that to the extent that one might be sympathetic. 
That family was rounded up with their American store. Their 
parents were not citizens. Their children were. We worked and 
worked and worked with an effort to try and secure their 
ability to stay, so that they could status themselves. 
Ultimately, they were deported to Jordan; first to Canada, and 
then to Jordan. The hardship and break on that family was 
enormous.
    I want to ask both Mr. Yang and Mr. Bier, in particular, 
and I will start with Mr. Bier. I do want to say, I join with 
the Congressperson Pareen, to find every way to ensure that you 
can stay in this Nation, this country, your country, and to 
make sure that you can get the interns and fellowships you 
want.
    Let me just quickly ask Mr. Yang and Mr. Bier, because have 
I heard this before. Can you, through me, speak to the fears 
that are being expressed by my friends on the other side of the 
aisle? How do you address that fear for us to be able to move 
in a bipartisan way realistically to solve this inadequate 
immigration system? Let me start with Mr. Bier first, please.
    Mr. Bier. I think we can think of a number of different 
ways to address the concern. The main concern that I am hearing 
from the other side is that there are just too many people who 
want to come to this country. I don't share that concern at 
all. I think more people contributing to this country would 
make us a stronger economy, a stronger country. If you look at 
our share of GDP, it's declined by 50 percent out of the share 
of world GDP over the last 50 years.
    So, the U.S. influence is declining as a result of these 
limits on immigration. I do think that we can find agreement in 
certain areas. The majority in this current Committee passed an 
ag workforce bill. We also had an ag workforce bill passed by 
the last majority, Representative Goodlatte's bill. We could 
find common ground about that, and ultimately see that pass 
into law.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Yang.
    Mr. Yang. Mr. Bier gives a good--let me give you two 
stories. One is Levi Strauss. Levi Strauss was brought here to 
the country because of one of his siblings. He came here with 
nothing in his pockets and built an iconic American brand.
    Let me talk about Yahoo, Jerry Yang, was brought here to 
the country by one of his siblings. He brought an iconic 
American brand. That's the value that immigrants and family 
immigration brings to this country.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. If you only can see our way clear, and 
that would include African immigrants as well who come and have 
a strong emphasis on science and medicine and building the 
economy. I hope our friends on the other side can hear that, 
because I do think we can find a pathway forward. Madam Chair, 
I don't know my time at this point.
    Ms. Lofgren. Time actually has expired.
    Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, thank you so very much. With that, 
Ms. Madam Chair, I yield back. Thank you.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady, Ms. Scanlon, is now 
recognized.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Chair Lofgren, for hosting this 
important conversation. I was so interested to read the title 
of today's conversation, because it becomes such a cliche 
response. Whenever the broken nature of our immigration system 
intrudes on the news, the idea that people seeking admission to 
the U.S. should get in line or wait their turn becomes a go-to 
talking point for folks who don't really understand how complex 
our immigration system has become. Often the lack of 
understanding goes back to their personal family history, 
whether decades or generations ago, which was often vastly 
different and didn't involve navigating the complicated photos 
and application processes or waiting decades for a visa.
    So, the reality is, our immigration system today is 
incredibly slow and complex. Refugees are waiting decades for a 
chance to join their families in the U.S. Talented workers are 
choosing to work in other countries so that they can more 
easily bring their spouses and children. Of course, Dreamers 
and TPS holders are left confused by complicated and 
regrettably changing guidance.
    So, I am grateful for this opportunity to hear from experts 
about the changes that Congress could make because we really 
must simplify and reform our immigration process.
    Mr. Yang, I think your testimony talks a little bit about 
the decades' long backlogs for family-based and green cards. 
Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe compare how 
those backlogs impact people from different areas, or people 
today versus even a decade or two ago?
    Mr. Yang. Absolutely. Thank you for that question. 
Certainly, the backlogs do affect us differently depending on 
where you're from. So, if you talk about countries like Mexico, 
Philippines, India, and China, those countries have the longest 
backlog, especially when you talk about the sibling category, 
we're talking about over two decades when it comes to family-
based immigration.
    So, I think Mr. Bier talked about there was perhaps an 
unusable system, as it currently exists. That's exactly right. 
As we need to update the system from where it was 30 years ago.
    One thing to go to what Representative Spartz was asking 
about is what are some fixes that we could offer that make 
sense, or that are efficient? One thing that could be offered 
is ending the count of derivatives. Or what I mean by 
derivatives is, spouses and immediate children of a person that 
is applying for a visa. Right now, they're counted towards 
these caps, towards these numbers. If we exclude them from the 
numbers, then we start to get rid of the backlog. We start to 
streamline the system. Reclassifying spouses, permanent 
partners, and minor children of green cardholders and immediate 
relatives, that's another way that you start to move some of 
these backlogs.
    The last thing I would offer that certainly is something 
that, whether it's Congress potentially, administratively you 
could do is recapturing immigrant visas that were unused. 
Because of bureaucratic delays, because of administrative 
delays, there's been a number of unused visas as far back as 
1992 that we can recapture, and then that could streamline that 
process to start to reduce those backlogs.
    Ms. Scanlon. Thank you for that. That's really interesting. 
I did have experience with representing a woman who our State 
Department honored as a hero from Darfur, who was repeatedly 
kidnapped and tortured and spent decades in a displaced persons 
camp where her parents and siblings remain. There is nothing 
she can do to try to reunite with her family. She cannot return 
there, or she'll be murdered. She cannot bring them here. It's 
truly, truly heartbreaking.
    Mr. Bier, I hear all the time from academic, medical, and 
research institutions in my district that our system and, 
particularly, the rules regarding H-1B visas and work 
authorization for spouses are really impeding our economic 
efforts and our research and development efforts and really 
hurting a lot of our medical progress, ect. Can you address the 
consequences to the U.S. economy and to Americans if we don't 
address some of these issues?
    Mr. Bier. Look, we are already losing out dramatically as a 
result of our broken immigration system. India has already 
surpassed us in terms of software exports in the world economy. 
You are talking about biomedical expertise; the United States 
is losing out there. We know that all the companies that were 
working on vaccines, all of them were employing H-1B workers. 
Many of their spouses are ineligible from working until they 
enter the green card process. Now, we have Trump era rules that 
are preventing those spouses from being able to renew their 
work authorization.
    So, we've had 91,000 lose their work authorization over the 
last year. All those people are working in high-skilled 
industries and occupations, and we're disemploying them, and 
causing this huge upset in the high-skill sector.
    So, ultimately, Congress needs to step in, they need to 
have congressional authorization and mandates to make sure that 
we are treating our high-skilled workforce like the asset that 
they are. Ultimately, no country on Earth treats their high-
skilled immigrants as poorly as the United States does. So, 
it's no wonder so many are going to other countries. We're 
seeing immigration--Indian immigration to Canada in the last 5 
years has doubled. So, it's not surprising that the United 
States can lose out on many innovators and entrepreneurs.
    Ms. Scanlon. I think I have even heard, other countries 
such as President Macron, actively courting folks who aren't 
able to stay here. I see my time has expired, so I yield back. 
Thank you.
    Ms. Lofgren. The gentlelady yields back. I now will start 
with my questions. I think about a lot of Americans are great 
people, and I have heard people say, my family immigrated the 
right way, and that's all we want. I think about my 
grandfather, he immigrated the right way at the time. That 
process was this: He got on a boat, the boat sailed to America, 
and he got off the boat. That was the whole process. It's what 
served the United States at the time. We now have a very 
complicated system, and the question is, does it serve the 
United States' interest or not?
    When I think about the backlogs and family immigration, if 
you are a legal permanent resident of the United States, and 
you petition for your spouse, ultimately, you and your spouse 
are going to be reunited, but there may be some delay. So, what 
value does it give to the United States to separate spouses for 
a period of years? I don't see what value that yields to the 
United States. We ought to fix that because we set the rules.
    Also, about the employment base, and yes, we have the 
National Origin Bill, but we have a version of that now. If you 
take a look at the V's allegation, Western Europe has 25 
countries, some very tiny, Lichtenstein. The population of 
Western Europe is about 196 million people. They get no more 
than 7 percent per country. Yet, if you look at India, with a 
population of 1.36 billion, they get the same allocation as 
Lichtenstein.
    Now, I don't think that's a neutral allocation, and I think 
it harms the United States. Because the gentlelady is right, we 
have recruiters down here from Canada taking people who are 
hotshots, waiting in interminable lines, and they're leaving. 
They're going to Toronto, which is why the Toronto tech economy 
is growing faster than Silicon Valley today. So, we need figure 
out what's good for America, what serves American interest as 
we look at writing the laws.
    I would like to talk to you, Dr. Bier, if you would. On the 
per-country cap issue. Obviously, the broader issue is making 
sure that we have enough visas to meet the need, and that 
relates to both scrutinizing that we have an adequate test to 
make sure that Americans are not displaced, that the person who 
is to be hired, in fact, is an important goal and win for the 
American economy. We may want to do that. If that hurdle is 
passed, how do we make sure by adjusting the caps that we don't 
actually hurt others? People are concerned. If you adjust 
relative to the biggest companies, somehow others will be left 
out, when, in fact, the bill that we have worked with the 
Senate on doesn't completely eliminate the cap, it just adjusts 
it downward to 75 percent. Can you address that issue?
    Mr. Bier. Well, the issue you're talking about is 
ultimately the consequence of the backlog in the per country 
caps is that almost all the people in the backlog are from 
India. So, if we do it in a first-in--first-out basis, then 
Indians are going to be processed first, and then new 
applicants are going to get to the back of the line. In my 
opinion, that is a completely fair system. There are other 
issues at stake, and, so, there is a transition process 
provided in the bill that enables a transition over time to 
phase out these country caps.
    At the end of the day, a fair process is treating everyone 
as individuals, knowing what the process is going to be when 
you apply, and taking into account birthplaces is just not a 
reasonable basis for an immigration system.
    Ms. Lofgren. We had a report, and I would like to ask 
unanimous consent to put the report in the record.
    [The information follows:]
   

                       MS. LOFGREN FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Lofgren. The Joint Economic Committee has prepared a 
report on immigrants in the U.S. economy. They report that 29 
percent of physicians in the United States are foreign-born, 
and that 25 percent of new firms in the United States were 
started by immigrants. I am just wondering by failing to 
provide for a lawful status for needed physicians, and for 
people who want to start companies in the United States, what 
damage, in your judgment, does that do to the American economy 
and to American workers? Mr. Bier, if you can address that.
    Mr. Bier. It does incredible damage. If you look for the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics saying these are going to be some of 
the fastest-growing occupations with the aging of our society. 
As the elderly population grows, we're going to need more 
physicians, we're going to need more home health aides. Home 
health aides are even more overrepresented by the immigrant 
population. They're almost 40 percent foreign-born.
    So, we need these workers right now, particularly, dealing 
with the demographic situation that our country faces. The 
Social Security Administration is telling us we need workers to 
fund Social Security.
    So, at the end of the day, I think you have to say that our 
system is too constrained given the moment in time right now. 
We have to address the challenges of our economy, and one of 
those is expanding the legal immigration system.
    Ms. Lofgren. I see that my time has expired, and so I will 
stop my questions. We do know that the record is open for the 
next 5 days for additional questions that may be directed to 
our Witnesses. We ask if those questions are directed to you, 
that you please answer them promptly.
    I would also like to ask unanimous consent to put in the 
record statements from 16 organizations and 25 individuals, 
four individuals who have asked that their statements be made 
part of the record.
    [The information follows:]

   
                      MS. LOFGREN FOR THE RECORD

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    Ms. Lofgren. Without objection, that will be done. This 
concludes today's hearing. I would like to thank, once again, 
our panel of Witnesses for participating in this hearing. You 
have helped advance our understanding of this complex issue. 
Without objection, as I said, all Members will have 5 
legislative days to submit additional written material or 
questions for the Witnesses. Unless there is an objection, this 
hearing is now adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
     

                                APPENDIX

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