This is the best news we’ve heard in weeks.  As Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) recently stated in a CNN interview with Piers Morgan (to paraphrase)… We must have a compelling mission of innovation through which to filter and shape our decision making and legislative reform.

Compete America,  a coalition dedicated to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce it needs to continue to lead in innovation and job creation, applauded yesterday the House Republican Technology Working Group for committing to review current visa rules that inhibit access to highly educated, innovative foreign workers among its policy priorities for job creation.

Under the section, “Ensure American Access to the Best Workers,” the Working Group committed to “examine current education programs to make sure they are operating efficiently.  We will also examine current visa and immigration laws to make sure we attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world.”

The American Council on International Personnel (ACIP) had this to say in their Press Release yesterday:

“…Today we applaud the House Republican Technology Working Group for including among its job creation priorities a commitment to review current education policies and immigration laws to ensure that America has access to the best talent, from America and around the world. In its list of priorities, “A Focus on Technology Policies that Foster Job Creation,” released today, the Working Group states:

Ensure American Access to the Best Workers: We will examine current education programs to make sure they are operating efficiently.  We will also examine current visa and immigration laws to make sure we attract and retain the best and brightest minds from around the world.

The commitment is consistent with several recent calls for reform made by both Democratic and Republican leaders, and is in line with ACIP’s long-held position that improving U.S. STEM education and reforming highly educated employment-based immigration policies to allow access to the world’s best and brightest are both needed for building America’s 21^st century workforce.

We applaud the House Republican Technology Working Group for making a commitment today to review education and visa policies to ensure a strong American workforce, said ACIP Executive Director Lynn Shotwell.  We urge Congress and the Administration to join together and enact bipartisan reform of the high-skilled employment-based immigration system this year.”

US companies have contributed nearly $2 billion in H-1B fees to scholarships and US worker training since 1999.  For a list of companies contributing to education and the future of the American workforce, we link here

For more editorial content on this subject:

CNN:  Fareed Zakaria, How to Innovate

Wall Street Journal

The Washington Post

Forbes

The Watertown Daily Times