Bloomberg calls for four-part immigration reform

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday called on Congress to adopt a pro-business four-point immigration reform agenda that steers clear of the hot-button issue of dealing with illegal immigration that has so far bogged down reform.

The business community wants Congress to ease visa restrictions on highly skilled workers, business representatives and graduate students. Bloomberg was speaking to a receptive audience at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, and pitched the reforms as a no-cost way to boost the economy.

“Right now, the two parties — to the extent they talk at all about immigration — play to their base. Democrats say we need comprehensive immigration reform — and I agree we do. Republicans say we need to tighten the border — and I agree with that as well. But unfortunately that is where the national conversation ends," he said.

“Now, if we could just get the two sides to talk with each other — instead of past each other — I believe we could see a lot more agreement than disagreement, and I believe we could pass a bill that would do more to strengthen the economy than anything that is being discussed in Washington today.

"It is not something that can wait for the next election," Bloomberg said, calling the visa limits a form of "national suicide" that is driving jobs overseas.

Bloomberg called on Congress to increase the proportion of green cards that are awarded for economic instead of family-reunification reasons. He said that currently only some 7 percent of permanent-resident cards are in practice given for the purpose of attracting talented workers and business people.

“That’s why I think we should dramatically expand the numbers of green cards available for the best of the best — the highest-skilled workers we need to join the U.S. economy permanently," he said. He said the cap on such visas by country should be done away with as well.

Second, Bloomberg wants graduate students in science, technology, engineering or math to be offered green cards automatically.

Additionally, the mayor called on Congress to offer more temporary visas to entrepreneurs.

Bloomberg said that he favors comprehensive immigration reform but even piecemeal approaches are better than nothing.

He said there are "plenty of statistics" to disprove union arguments that increasing temporary-worker visas increases unemployment for Americans. He said the visas are used in creative or technical fields and boosting talent there increases unionized manufacturing and service-sector jobs.

"They create products that then people manufacture and service, and that is where the union membership tends to be," he said.

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