Last week, I was at Washington DC to participate in an Immigration rally organized by Immigration Voice (IV) . Apart from the rally, IV Core team also requested few volunteers to do active lobbying to create awareness of legal immigration issues to our state congressmen staffers. I will outline few things that can be kept on public domain (as you must be aware many strategic issues cannot be disclosed as anti-immigration lobbyy is very aggressive and may hamper our efforts).
These are my key observations -
1) Legal immigration is a non-issue Surprising it may be but nobody thinks about 1 million legal immigrants living in the probationary limbo for more than 4 years. They care more about undocumented workers. By the magnitude of the issue, church involvement, family separation issues etc, I felt for sometime that undocumented worker is better positioned in the DC politics.
2) Legal Immigrants are unorganized There is no single organization (till IV came into existence) that represented legal immigrant community. Policies are made in USA with lobbying by special interest groups, representative organizations and USD($). Without these, nothing can be done. Being non-citizens, legal immigrants cannot directly fund any political organization either for campaign funding or other soft funding. Indian-Americans, Chinese-Americans etc so far did not get involve at all. They have more power than IV to influence Congress.
3) Legal Immigrants are non-political When there is such a fundamental issue being fought for, I expected that at least 20,000 will turn out to the rally. But there are just 3000 participants in the rally. DC metro area and tri-state are has a large immigrant community. It doesnt take much effort to take off from work for few hours and walk 2 miles. But it seems that there are less than 100 participants from that area. How many would be hording outside the theatres if Shivaji movie is released?
Almost everyone has an opinion of how to improve the process. But they do not show up when we need to show the strength. Just skewed priorities and political inactivism is clouding many Indian legal immigrants from standing up.
4) People think that we are all same People who do not violate speeding and simple road laws are being kept on par with undocumented workers. While undocumented aliens(God I hate that word Alien!!!), have their own plight, there is no excuse for violating law unless US Congress decides to give amnesty. Somehow it doesnt seem to be right on anybody's part to equate both.
5) USA will face Skilled HR crunch soon Legal immigrants that too in the highly skilled category are in high demand from many growing economies of Europe and of course, India and China. US is able to attract the talent but if very ineffective in retaining talent. US experience is of very high demand in many sectors. Unless US Congress decides to repair it's broken immigration laws, reverse-brain drain will happen in much faster rate. (it is already happening). USA is simply not the sole destination for a global high tech worker. Unfortunately US Congress kept both legal immigrants and undocumented workers in the same quadrant and is trying to bring a Comprehensive Immigration Reform. This is a no-mover. In my life time, I do not expect all parties to come to a consensus on this. Legal skilled immigrants are expecting Congress to separate them out and bring appropriate provisions that will immediately get effective.
6) H1B is not liked by many Even though H1B increase is expected by many foriegn based companies to effectively run their businesses, somehow the perception on the hill looks like this program is abused by many companies. I will not be surprised if the number is capped even down. And there is a high chance that L1 visa will also be capped. No cap is basically prone to abuse. I think all companies must make serious effort to recruit US citizens before bringing foriegn workers. I am sure already it is being done, but these efforts to recruit US Citizens is somehow not highly publicized. Indian IT companies (whom I wish every success), must act on this advice immediately.
Over all, the trip was very useful for me personally. Only 1 in 15 US citizens meet their congressmen in their lives, (as quoted by someone at DC.) I am fortunate enough to meet seven house members and two senators in one day.
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