Politics & Government

Assembly Passes Huff's Bill Calling for Federal Immigration Reform

The proposed legislation includes Startup Act 3.0, which would create an entrepreneur visa program for legal immigrants.

Legislation pushing for Congress to pass and President Obama to sign a comprehensive federal immigration reform bill received unanimous support from the state Assembly.

The legislation, authored by Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, includes the bi-partisan Startup Act 3.0, which creates an entrepreneur's visa for legal immigrants with the hopes of fostering job creation, according to a news release.

All state Senate Republicans are serving as authors of SJR 9 to get the entrepreneur visa program up and running, according to Huff.

“The Startup Act means job opportunities for California families,” Huff said in a statement. “The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation projects that the Startup Act has the potential to add between 500,000 and 1.6 million new jobs for Americans over the next 10 years.”

Find out what's happening in Diamond Bar-Walnutwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The way the U.S, currently issues H-18 visas has left out 40,000 immigrants after federal authorities received too many applications, Huff said.  The U.S. Citizenship Immigration Services is restricted to issuing 85,000 H1B visas each year.  The federal agency received 124,000 applications in five days, which forced the creation of a lottery system. 

“Businesses created by high-skilled immigrants have long been a source of jobs for all Californians,” Huff said. “Unfortunately, our old and unworkable visa policies are hurting our state. In the past seven years, the national rate of startups by immigrants has dropped to 42 percent. The number of foreign nationals with advanced degrees awaiting permanent residence status in the U.S. has grown to over one million.”

Find out what's happening in Diamond Bar-Walnutwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

SJR 9 will go before the State Senate for a final vote later this month.


 



Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here