EAGLE Act: Demise Deserved

On Wednesday evening, the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act — or EAGLE Act — “was so overwhelmed by the opposition that it was pulled . . . from consideration by U.S. House Democratic leadership before a vote could be held,” Tech Target reported. An earlier, more modest version of the immigration bill, introduced in the House as the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act in early 2019, enjoyed broad bipartisan support, garnering 311 co-sponsors by June of that year. But when an amended version of the legislation was introduced with far-more-expansive provisions — which could have orchestrated a significant increase in immigration from foreign nationals, particularly from China and India — many of the initiative’s previous backers balked.

The debates over the EAGLE Act are something of a proxy for larger questions surrounding America’s legal-immigration system, which has traditionally enjoyed broad bipartisan support within both major political parties. The initial, more rudimentary version of the legislation would have lifted per-country caps on employment-based H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign nationals to work in the United States, but would not have increased the net number of visas allocated. The more recent version, however, would have given residents waiting in the significant visa-applicant backlog the ability to apply immediately for green cards, allowing them permanent residency in the U.S. and putting them on a pathway to citizenship. In addition, a provision raising the cap on family-based visa applications from 7 percent to 15 percent would have allowed those green-card recipients to bring over even more family members through what is colloquially known as “chain migration” — a dispensation in the nation’s immigration system that allows the relatives of green-card holders to emigrate to the U.S. either through green cards or visas of their own.

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Nate Hochman

Nate Hochman was a staff writer at National Review.

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On Wednesday evening, the Equal Access to Green cards for Legal Employment Act — or EAGLE Act — “was so overwhelmed by the opposition that it was pulled . . . from consideration by U.S. House Democratic leadership before a vote could be held,” Tech Target reported. An earlier, more modest version of the immigration bill, introduced in the House as the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act in early 2019, enjoyed broad bipartisan support, garnering 311 co-sponsors by June of that year. But when an amended version of the legislation was introduced with far-more-expansive provisions — which could have orchestrated a significant increase in immigration from foreign nationals, particularly from China and India — many of the initiative’s previous backers balked.

The debates over the EAGLE Act are something of a proxy for larger questions surrounding America’s legal-immigration system, which has traditionally enjoyed broad bipartisan support within both major political parties. The initial, more rudimentary version of the legislation would have lifted per-country caps on employment-based H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign nationals to work in the United States, but would not have increased the net number of visas allocated. The more recent version, however, would have given residents waiting in the significant visa-applicant backlog the ability to apply immediately for green cards, allowing them permanent residency in the U.S. and putting them on a pathway to citizenship. In addition, a provision raising the cap on family-based visa applications from 7 percent to 15 percent would have allowed those green-card recipients to bring over even more family members through what is colloquially known as “chain migration” — a dispensation in the nation’s immigration system that allows the relatives of green-card holders to emigrate to the U.S. either through green cards or visas of their own.