During my graduate studies at MIT, I would often hear the same story from my friends that were international students–many of them wished to pursue their careers in the United States upon graduation, but were finding it difficult due to visa and immigration issues. During this election season, both the Obama and Romney campaigns have discussed how they would ensure that the United States remains the world leader in innovation and scientific research (see Mark Staples’ previous ScienceWonks post). Immigration issues have also traditionally been a hot topic in the political arena. A recent example is the DREAMAct which would have enabled a path to citizenship for eligible children of undocumented immigrants, and although the legislation passed the House, it failed to reach the 60-vote threshold to end debate on the Senate floor.

Legislation has recently been introduced in both the House and the Senate that focuses on allowing talented international students studying in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields to stay in the United States after graduation. A breakdown of all three bills, along with their legislative sponsor, appears in the chart below.

The key difference between the Republican House bill and the Democratic House bill is that the Republican proposal contained a measure to eliminate the diversity visa program. This is important because it is one of the few pathways for immigrants to legally attain citizenship in the United States. This program is also an attempt to ensure immigrant diversity by establishing a lottery to randomly distribute permanent residence or “green card” visas among immigrants from countries that are not largely represented in the United States. Additionally, the elimination of this program is how the Republican proposal intends to make available the 55,000 green card visas for STEM graduates. Both Democratic proposals would create additional green card visas for STEM graduates without eliminating the diversity visa bill program already in existence. As a result, the Republican bill failed last week to pass the House by a vote of 257-158, largely along party lines because of the proposal’s intent to eliminate the diversity visa program.

There is overwhelming bipartisan support for legislation to help talented international students stay legally in the United States, as well as support from the tech industry and universities across the country. While I’m disappointed to see that the Republican bill failed to pass the House, I remain hopeful that some sort of immigration reform for international STEM students will be passed in the near future. At the same time, I’m concerned with the timing of the various proposals, as I do not want Congress and the White House to be too hasty in their drafting and voting on the bill based on the national election cycle. Furthermore, I absolutely do not want this issue to become merely a soundbite for the election. I do think all of the discussion is healthy and demonstrates that the country recognizes the contributions that international students studying STEM fields have made. If the United States has invested in their education through research grants and money, it seems prudent to at least investigate how we can help persuade these students to stay in the United States and apply their acquired skills to help innovation flourish in this country.