Creating American Jobs Through Foreign Capital Investment Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3245) to extend by 3 years the authorization of the EB-5 Regional Center Program, the E-Verify Program, the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program, and the Conrad State 30 J-1 Visa Waiver Program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on S. 3245, currently under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I'd like to thank the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking member for introducing this legislation and for working with me to help ensure that four key immigration- related programs do not expire at the end of this month.

This Congress must ensure there is a national business climate that fosters the ability of private enterprise to create jobs for Americans and legal workers.

S. 3245, which extends for 3 years the E-Verify, EB-5 Regional Center Pilot, the Conrad 30 J-1 Visa Waiver, and the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker programs, helps achieve this goal in several ways.

First, the E-Verify program allows employers to electronically verify that newly hired employees are authorized to work in the United States. The program is free, quick, and easy to use. Nearly 400,000 American employers use E-Verify, and over 1,000 new businesses sign up for it every week.

The American public overwhelmingly supports E-Verify. Last year, a Rasmussen poll found that 82 percent of likely voters ``think businesses should be required to use the Federal Government's E-Verify system to determine if a potential employee is in the country legally.''

E-Verify has also received bipartisan congressional support in the past. In 2008, the House passed a 5-year extension of E-Verify by a vote of 407-2. And in 2009, the Senate passed a permanent E-Verify extension by voice vote.

Ensuring that businesses have access to E-Verify will help preserve jobs for the 23 million Americans who are currently unemployed or looking for full-time work.

The investor visa program also helps create jobs for Americans. Under this program, 10,000 immigrants can receive permanent residence each year if they engage in a new commercial enterprise, invest between $500,000 and $1 million in the business, and see that it creates 10 full-time jobs for American workers.

The Regional Center Pilot Project, which is almost two decades old, has reinvigorated the investor visa program. Investment through a regional center is especially attractive to potential investors because they are relieved of the responsibility of running a new business. They can also count indirect job creation towards the job creation requirement. Most investor visa petitions now involve regional centers.

It appears that investors may feel more confident about a regional center that is operated through a State or city government. In these hard economic times, many State and local governments have turned to regional centers as a method of generating economic growth.

The Association to Invest in the United States of America has estimated the regional center program has created or saved over 65,000 jobs in the U.S. and has led to the investment of over $3 billion in the U.S. economy.

S. 3245 also extends for 3 years a program that has successfully brought needed doctors to medically underserved areas in the U.S. This program was designed by Senator Kent Conrad. It allows foreign doctors who have been in the U.S. on exchange programs to stay at the conclusion of their residencies if they agree to practice medicine for at least 3 years in health professional shortage areas. This is a valuable provision, and I support its reauthorization.

Finally, S. 3245 extends the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program. Under this program, 5,000 immigrant visas can be issued to nonminister individuals who have been members of the denomination and who have worked in the capacity for which they are applying for at least the 2 years immediately following the visa applications. Historically, the program has been plagued by fraud, but the Bush administration took steps to help prevent much of the fraud, and now many churches and religious organizations in the United States rely on these immigrant nonministers. I look forward to making statutory changes aimed at even more fraud prevention, and I support the program's extension.

Again, I want to thank Senator Leahy and Senator Grassley for their leadership on this bill. All four of these programs are important, and I urge my colleagues to support S. 3245.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I just want to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lofgren) for her continued interest and leadership in the subject of immigration, and I especially appreciate her support of this bill today.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Committee on Education and the Workforce, House of

Representatives,

Washington, DC, September 10, 2012.

Hon. Lamar Smith,

Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to confirm our mutual

understanding with respect to the consideration of S. 3245, a

bill that reauthorizes certain immigration provisions. Thank

you for consulting with the Committee on Education and the

Workforce with regard to S. 3245 on those matters within the

committee's jurisdiction.

In the interest of expediting the House's consideration of

S. 3245, the Committee on Education and the Workforce will

forgo further consideration on this bill. However, I do so

only with the understanding that this procedural route will

not be construed to prejudice the committee's jurisdictional

interest and prerogatives on this bill or any other similar

legislation and will not be considered as precedent for

consideration of matters of jurisdictional interest to my

committee in the future.

I respectfully request your support for the appointment of

outside conferees from the Committee on Education and the

Workforce should this bill or a similar bill be considered in

a conference with the Senate. I also request that you include

our exchange of letters on this matter in the Committee

Report on S. 3245 and in the Congressional Record during

consideration of this bill on the House floor. Thank you for

your attention to these matters.

Sincerely,

John Kline,

Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I do rise in strong support of this bill. Specifically, this bill extends until September 30, 2015, these four longstanding immigration programs that are set to expire otherwise at the end of this month. They are valuable programs, and they serve different purposes.

The one, the Special Immigrant Nonminister Religious Worker Program, allows religious workers to enter the United States to do important work. There are 5,000 religious workers eligible for these visas each year when they are called to a vocation or are in a traditional religious occupation with a bona fide nonprofit religious organization. They are missionaries, counselors, instructors, and pastoral care providers. They really help our country.

The second program, the Conrad ``J Waiver,'' helps medically underserved communities attract highly skilled physicians. This program literally provides a lifeline for communities that desperately need doctors who received their medical training in the United States. It is absolutely necessary that this program continues to exist so that States can attract medical talent and can keep the doors of small town clinics open.

The third program, the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Pilot Program, allocates 3,000--out of the EB-5 category's 10,000--visas each year for EB-5 investors who invest in these designated regional centers. This pilot program is important to our Nation's economy as it represents, actually, billions of dollars in aggregate immigrant investment, and it creates more than 20,000 new direct and indirect jobs each year.

The final program that would be extended under the bill is E-Verify, the basic pilot program first authorized in 1996. Now, Chairman Smith and I disagree on how effective this bill is. I don't believe it's ready for mandatory nationwide use because of errors in the system and, more broadly, because of major dysfunctions in our immigration system, but that doesn't mean I disagree that this program should be extended. I do. This program is voluntary, and by extending the E-Verify program as it currently exists, it will provide Congress additional time to work toward improving the program and fixing our Nation's immigration laws so that they work for American families, businesses, and the economy as a whole.

I should note that this bill received unanimous support in the Senate. Likewise, I hope that all of my colleagues in this Chamber will support this bipartisan legislation so that it can be quickly sent to the President's desk for his signature.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we do have two Members who would like to address this briefly. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Larsen).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

I have no additional speakers, and I would be happy to yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 3245, which would, in part, reauthorize the EB-5 visa program for 3 years. This EB-5 program will create good American jobs.

Last year, I worked with Senator Leahy to write H.R. 2972, the Creating American Jobs Through Foreign Capital Act. That legislation would have reauthorized EB-5 permanently. While the bill before us today extends the program for only 3 years, it is still an important job creator that we must pass. The program allows qualified foreign investors who invest in the U.S. and who create or save at least 10 full-time American jobs to seek U.S. visas. This program brings overseas capital to the U.S. to create jobs for people in my district and across America.

There are two projects in Everett, Washington, currently being financed through the EB-5 program. One is a college building. If this bill is not passed, our area will lose this building and the opportunities associated with it. The second investment is one for a building that houses a regional farmers' market, which is a project that has been in the works and is almost done. This project will help local farmers regionally and create jobs. If this bill is not passed, again, this project, which is set to be finished soon, will not be completed, and all finance and investments will be lost. In another part of my district, in Whatcom County, the local EB-5 center has leveraged more than $34 million from immigrant investors to create more than 800 good local jobs.

The EB-5 program is a real threefer: It's a win for American workers, who benefit from thousands of new jobs; it's a win for the taxpayer because it doesn't add one penny to the national deficit; third, it helps the U.S. compete on a global scale. The U.S. EB-5 visa program is one of more than 20 similar programs run by other important, growing economies like Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore.

Our economy cannot afford to do without these investments or these jobs. If we don't keep this road open for foreign investment into the U.S., that investment will choose another country's road. Congress must extend the EB-5 program so that we can continue to create new jobs at a time when we need them most.

Mr. Chair, last year I introduced H.R. 2972, the Creating American Jobs Through Foreign Capital Act. This legislation seeks to permanently reauthorize the EB 5 program. The EB 5 program allows qualified foreign investors who create or save at least 10 full-time American jobs by making major investments in U.S. businesses to seek U.S. visas. The program, first established in 1990, has been continued as a short-term pilot program.

Last year the program created or saved more than 25,000 American jobs and generated $1.25 billion in investment, according to the Association to Invest In the USA. For example, in the Second Congressional District in Washington state, this program has created least 800 jobs in Whatcom County alone. The EB 5 program is one of more than 20 immigrant investor programs around the world that are competing for capital investment. In the Asia-Pacific region, programs like EB 5 exist in Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Canada. As the United States more strongly embraces our role as an Asia-Pacific nation and looks to create jobs through exports to the region, we are competing with these countries, and many more around the world, for these investment dollars.

I am pleased that the Senate has included a two-year reauthorization of this program in Section 554 of its Homeland Security Appropriations bill. The Senate report highlighted that since its inception of this program in 1990 through 2011, USCIS estimates that a minimum of 43,280 jobs have been created and more than $2,200,000,000 has been invested through the EB 5 program. Our economy cannot afford to do without these investments or these jobs.

I want to thank Chairman Aderholt and Ranking Member Price for working with me on this issue. And, even though this reauthorization is not included in the House bill, I would like to thank the Subcommittee as a whole for understanding the importance of this language and this reauthorization and I urge you to preserve the Senate reauthorization during conference committee.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Chairman Lamar Smith and S. 3245 which reauthorizes the E-Verify program for an additional three years.

First, I would like to thank Chairman Smith for his leadership and support of the E-Verify program. The Chairman has steadfastly supported E-Verify, helped expand the program and provided for several reauthorizations. I commend his leadership and value his hard work on E-Verify and immigration issues.

S. 3245 provides for a simple three year reauthorization of the popular E-Verify program. In 1996, when I first wrote the legislation that created the E-Verify pilot program, I had humble expectations. Now, 16 years after its inception it has 399,538 employers participating at 1.2 million employer sites. So far in FY 2012, there have been more than 19.6 million queries run through the system. Congress and the entire Federal Government is required to use the system and several states have made use of the program mandatory for their employers.

E-Verify continues to defy expectations: it is 99.5 percent accurate, free to employers and easy to use. It continues to develop new ways to combat illegal employment such as Photo Tool, Self Lock, and Fraud Alert.

The next step, which Chairman Smith, Subcommittee Chairman Gallegly and I have been working on, is to make E-Verify mandatory for all employers in the U.S. With unemployment stuck above 8 percent for the 43rd consecutive month, it is time we ensure that American jobs are going to American workers and those legally authorized to work in the U.S. I am hopeful that the House will consider H.R. 2885 before the end of the year; the only way to truly gain control of our borders is to end the jobs magnet that brings people here illegally.

In the meantime, it is necessary that we reauthorize E-Verify for an additional three years and again, I commend Chairman Smith and look forward to working with him on our efforts to make E-Verify mandatory.