Lott to push bill to allow more visas

Washington --- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott will negotiate with Democrats next week on a bill raising the number of visas for high-skilled foreign workers, Lott told reporters Thursday.

The Republican leader will seek to limit amendments to the bill, allowing the long-stalled measure to move toward passage.

The tech industry welcomed the prospect of compromise on the H-1B visas, one if its top priorities in the waning weeks of the congressional session.

Lott's promise is "one giant step in the right direction," said Connie Correll, a spokeswoman for the Information Technology Industry Council. "If the Senate moves it, then it puts pressure on the House to do the same."

The H-1B visas allow skilled foreigners, such as computer programmers and engineers, to work in the United States for up to six years. Technology-driven companies say they are facing a worker shortage so severe that only an immediate infusion of foreign talent will help.

A spirit of compromise appeared to be spreading as industry steps up its fierce lobbying for the visa bill.

"This week, we've heard lot of positive talk" among key members of Congress, Correll said. "We're very optimistic that the talk is going to turn into something" that can pass both the House and Senate.

That the bill has not already passed may seem strange, considering that both Democrats and Republicans support the effort to nearly double the number of visas granted each year to 200,000.

But partisan fighting broke out this summer. The flash point came when Hispanic groups began pushing Congress to link H-1B legislation to a separate measure granting legal residency to as many as 2 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States since 1986.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), who along with Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) co-authored a bipartisan bill for expanding H-1B visas, surprised Republicans when she suddenly agreed with the Hispanic groups.

She sent a letter to Dreier saying the two issues ought to be linked. That infuriated Republicans, who insisted the White House was trying to use the immigration amnesty bill to make the GOP appear unfriendly to Hispanic voters during an election year. Tech lobbyists overwhelmingly have sided with Republicans in saying that the complex amnesty issue should not be tied to the high-tech visas.

Ron Eckstein, a spokesman for Lofgren, insists Democrats were just trying to be helpful, believing that linking the issues would get the Hispanic Caucus to support high-tech legislation.

"At one point, we suggested in a letter ... that it might be a good strategy to include these (amnesty issues) because it might help grow the vote," he said.

Richard Mills, a spokesman for Dreier, said the letter was never intended to be helpful, and in fact "derailed the House and Senate H-1B bills by inserting unrelated immigration issues into the debate."

Now lawmakers are trying to get back on track. But the clock may be running down, as Congress has set a target adjournment date of Oct. 6 so members can hit the campaign trail.

© Copyright 2000 The Atlanta Journal Constitution