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Wednesday Immigration Bulletin: STEM PhDs, Oz/Fetterman, EOIR

Added 2022-10-26 20:11:42 +0000 UTC

Good afternoon! Voters head to the polls in less than two weeks to choose who will represent them in the 118th Congress of the United States. Today we’ll take a look at the stymied state of STEM PhD relief in Congress, plus the tight Pennsylvania Senate race in this bulletin’s first election spotlight. Thanks for reading!

STEM PhD Migrants Stymied in Congress

Last week, Science reporter Kate Langin had an interesting story about how fewer STEM PhDs graduated last year due to the pandemic. “The 2020–21 academic year saw 1721 fewer STEM Ph.D.s awarded by U.S. universities compared with the preceding year—a change that amounts to the largest annual drop in science, technology, engineering, and math Ph.D.s in at least 40 years, according to data released yesterday from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates,” Langin reports.

STEM PhDs are often uniquely suited to fill major workforce shortages that are making the U.S. uncompetitive in the global economy. The CHIPS and Science Act had a provision that would have given some STEM PhDs in the semiconductor industry a pathway to citizenship. GOP Senators Chuck Grassley (IA) and Todd Young (IN) stripped the provision during the bill’s conference.

As we enter the lame duck, there is no stand alone bill or specific amendment that targets STEM PhD immigrants for relief. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) had a provision for immigrants with advanced degrees in STEM but, like the documented dreamer effort, the amendment was not part of the manager’s amendment.

There had been a House-side effort led by Silicon Valley Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren to include STEM PhD relief in NDAA, but the provision was sunk on procedural grounds: the amendment would open the NDAA up to be a revenue measure with significant budgetary impact. The NDAA has never been a revenue bill, as that would result in opening the floodgates to a variety of other unrelated revenue amendments and potential origination clause issues.

Because the STEM PhD amendment had budgetary impact, it required Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring, which has a huge impact on whether a bill lives or dies in Congress. Big line items on huge price tags are easy fodder for political attacks on the overall legislation. The nonpartisan CBO associates huge costs on migrants - any migrants - and their dependents when evaluating relief legislation.

"They just make estimates that are completely unrealistic," Lofgren told me in June. "These are people with PhDs that are going to have very high salaries and pay a lot of taxes."

The plight of STEM PhD migrants are another example of how senselessly restrictive immigration policy undermines economic resiliency across industries. The U.S. needs these workers, but is unwilling to incentivize their migration with an eventual citizenship pathway.

Are you a STEM PhD impacted by U.S. immigration policies? I’d love to hear from you as we continue to watch this policy space…

Midterm Spotlight: Pennsylvania Senate Race

Polling is all over the place in several close Senate races this week - especially in Pennsylvania where, in the last week, reports show voters swinging back and forth between John Fetterman and Mehmet Oz who are campaigning to replace retiring GOP Senator Pat Toomey.

Political Twitter was quick to point out that Fetterman’s performance on the debate stage last night against Oz left much to be desired. The Democratic Mayor of Braddock suffered a stroke in May that has shrouded his candidacy (however unfairly) in pathos.

Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, is an immigrant from Brazil, having moved undocumented to New York City when she was 7 years-old.

“John has seen my journey, my family’s journey as immigrants to this country,” Barreto Fetterman told me last month. She says if elected, her husband would be a champion for immigrant relief policies, especially for the undocumented community.

Regrettably, my phone didn’t capture audio of the interview where I asked her several specific questions about relief policies affecting both undocumented and documented migrants … but suffice to say Barreto Fetterman was impressively knowledgeable and assured me that her husband was on board with helping migrants, if elected.

Granted, assurances from the candidate’s partner are not assurances from the candidate which, in turn, are a long, far cry from an actual vote on the floor for immigrant relief policies by an actual United States Senator … but having a formerly undocumented latina among the Senate spouses in the next Congress would be something new.

Of course, this is all moot if Oz beats Fetterman for the Pennsylvania Senate seat. If elected, Oz has promised to be hawkish on undocumented immigration, despite the fact that his wife’s company, which claims to employ 35,000 “vegitation management specialists”, faced a $95 million dollar fine from ICE in 2017 for employing undocumented workers. Oz and his wife Lisa told the New York Post in February that they were “passive shareholders” in the company at the time of the ICE fine.

As for Oz’s position on legal immigration, it doesn’t appear that he’s been pressed on the matter so far on the campaign trail, where nuanced discussions of immigration policy have been rare. Instead, Oz and GOP candidates nationwide have pushed a crime narrative riddled with falsehoods that allows the party to attack non-voting immigrants as this election cycle’s main bogeymen (and bogeywomen).

I’ll keep watching Pennsylvania closely. Meanwhile, if you want to know more about the race, check out this really great profile by Abby Vesoulis for Mother Jones. It’s well worth a read.

Garland Appoints 32 New Immigration Judges

The Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced 32 new immigration judges today appointed across nine states by Attorney General Merick Garland. Here’s the list.