S.153, is called the Immigration Innovation
Act (or I-Squared), and it has taken on new significance following
the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino.
Those attacks were only possible due
to Muslim immigration: Syed Farook is reportedly the child of Pakistani
immigrants, and his jihadi bride, Tashfeen Malik, was reportedly born in
Pakistan.
The I-Squared bill is significant for a second reason. One of
the Senators who introduced the bill is
also running for President: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)And
several of Rubio’s most prominent financial backers are among the bill’s
boosters.
I-Squared would expand five major visa categories used by Muslim
migrants: the F-1 foreign student visa, green cards for foreign students, green
cards for their family members, the H-1B foreign worker visa, and the H-4
spousal visa.
THE F-1 VISA
Under current law, the F-1 student visa operates under the
assumption that foreign students have no intention of abandoning their home
countries. It is intended to operate similar to a foreign exchange program,
where the students return home after their studies are concluded. Current
statute reads that an F-1 visa holder is “an alien having a residence in a
foreign country which he has no intention of
abandoning…” 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(F)(i) [emphasis added]
The I-Squared bill turns that on its head by removing the presumption
that F-1 visa applicants return to their home country—rendering admissible a
larger pool of foreign applicants, who openly and explicitly have no intention
of returning home following their studies. It then allows an unlimited number
of foreign students to get lifetime green cards (Section 303). Because the F-1
visa is uncapped, these changes are revolutionary.
Section 201 of the I-Squared bill, “Authorization of dual
intent,” states, “the Immigration and Nationality Act… is amended by striking ‘which
he has no intention of abandoning’” from the definition of an F-1 student visa.
This sea change to the F-1 student visa will vastly expand the
use of a program that is already a pipeline for Muslim immigration.
According to State Department data, in 2014 the
U.S. issued more than 70,000 student visas to foreign nationals from
predominantly Muslim countries, as well as more than an additional 56,000
student visas to India.
As Pew noted in 2013,
“India has the world’s second-largest Muslim population in raw numbers (roughly
176 million) though Muslims make up just 14.4% of India’s total population.”
Because “there are an estimated 1.6 billion Muslims around the world,”
according to Pew, this would mean that more than one in every ten Muslims
worldwide resides in India (or 11% of the total Muslim population). Pew projects that
by 2050, India, “is expected have 311 million Muslims… making it the country
with the largest population of Muslims in the world.”
If the demographics of the visa issuances match the demographics
of the nation, nearly 8,000 F-1 student visas went to Muslim Indians last year
(14% of 56,000)—meaning that in fiscal year 2014, the U.S. likely issued around
78,000 student visas to Muslim students on F-1 visas.
Crucially, I-Squared’s changes to the F-1 visa program are
paired with green card changes that would allow an unlimited number of foreign
students on temporary F-1 visas to get lifetime green cards for themselves and
their families. In other words: the bill takes an existing pipeline for Muslim
migration—the temporary foreign student visa—expands that program, and then
creates a new, uncapped immigration program that will allow these temporary
Muslim students to receive lifetime green cards and a path to citizenship.
This new provision, however, contradicts the very logic
underlying the student visa program. As immigration attorney John Miano and
Michelle Malkin explain in their new book Sold Out,
the purpose of the student visa was predicated upon the idea that the student
return home after study:
The noble idea of educating international students and exposing
them to American culture to “foster understanding” and “peace” rested on those
students’ returning to their homelands
after graduation to share their positive experience and apply what they had
learned to improve their own countries… the original intent of the F-1 program
was to invest in foreign students’ education in order to benefit America by
creating goodwill ambassadors who return to their home countries, not to create
cheap workers for U.S. companies.
THE EMPLOYMENT-BASED
GREEN CARD
Section 201(b)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act
outlines categories of “aliens not subject to numerical limitations” for green
cards.
One of the most radical rewrites to immigration law entailed in
Rubio’s bill is the expansion of that provision to include an uncapped green
card program for foreign students– this policy has been variously called
“instant green cards” or “stapling green cards to diplomas.”
Section 303 of the I-Squared bill states that “Section 201(b)(1)
of the Immigration and Nationality Act… is amended by adding… aliens who have
earned a master’s or higher degree in a field listed on the STEM Designated
Degree Program List published by the Department of Homeland Security on the
Student Exchange Visitor Program website from an institution of higher
education…” as a category of “aliens not subject to direct numerical
limitation.” Via Breitbart
