Get a master’s degree from a US university and you could be sitting on an immigration goldmine. 
According to reports, a new US Senate proposal would allow limitless H1-B visas and green cards for foreigners with master’s degrees or higher in any field from an American university — or anyone with such credentials in the science, technology, engineering or math fields from abroad.
This week is immigration reform week in the US Congress, as it battles issues like border fencing and temporary worker visas. Like other competing proposals in Congress right now, the ‘Skilled Worker Immigration and Fairness Act’, introduced on Tuesday by senators Joseph Lieberman and Chuck Hagel, also proposes raising the existing annual cap on the controversial H1-B visas from 65,000 to 115,000 for fiscal year 2007.
That number could climb by 20% in each subsequent year, to as high as 180,000 if the previous year’s quota was exhausted.
Right now, there’s also a 20,000 visa cap beyond the existing H1-B quota for foreigners who have advanced degrees in the US. The new Senate Bill would remove that cap. It would also broaden the exemption from the H1-B limit beyond just those with advanced degrees to include foreigners with ‘medical specialty certification based on post-doctoral training and experience in the United States’.
A broad House of Representatives immigration Bill known as the Strive Act contains a similar approach. Commerce minister Kamal Nath has warned of dire consequences if H1-B visas are made a political issue.
But this will become more and more politicised as the US heads for presidential elections in 2008. “Outsourcing” was an issue in the 2004 elections and there is every evidence that it will be one this time as well.
According to government sources, the private sector is woefully inadequate to tackle this perception in the US, even though Nasscom has proposed a “professional visa” which has been forwarded in the CEO’s Forum between US and India.
ASDF