Posted on 06/11/2008 8:15:36 AM PDT by Dawnsblood
Comprehensive immigration reform may have eluded the 110th Congress, but House Democrats are still hoping to help two groups of workers — fashion models and computer geeks — who are usually linked only in implausible online fantasies.
Under current immigration policy, models coming to the United States for a photo shoot or an event — regardless of how short the stay — compete with high-tech workers for precious H-1B visas. But under a bill that cleared the Judiciary Committee last week, the models would be moved into a separate immigration category, freeing up more H-1B slots for the much-needed nerds.
The models and the high-tech workers were hastily lumped together in a 1991 immigration package. Back then, it didn’t much matter: The number of available H-1B visas was greater than the number of qualified applicants seeking them.
But those days are gone. In recent years, there have been as many as 165,000 applicants annually for the category’s 85,000 possible spots. As the competition for the visas has stiffened, the models have been squeezed out.
According to the committee report accompanying the bill, the government issued between 614 and 790 visas to models in each year between 2000 and 2005. But the number began falling after that, and it was all the way down to 349 in fiscal year 2007.
A shortage of models? Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), who introduced a bill that would create 1,000 new visa slots for them, said it’s a problem in Manhattan but also in his Brooklyn district, which feels the impact in terms of the loss of “ancillary benefits” such as jobs in the industry or increased business.
Weiner’s bill moves models into a new P-4 visa category, one associated with entertainers and athletes.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Anthony should change is name to Oscar Meyer Weiner
Fitting that a guy named Weiner is a democrat.
I thought this was another Michael Savage thread.
Isn’t this the guy that’s supposedly dating Hillary’s main squeeze, Huma Abedin?
}:-)4
What? They've never watched "Beauty & the Geek"??
Well, okay, neither have I, but I've heard about it.
Weiner is fighting to get more “male” models into this country. His supposed romance with Huma is laughable.
ping
Of course given Anthony Wiener's allege sexual proclivities, the joke stands.
Anthony Wiener is just putting this forward to add more hair to his beard, if you catch my drift.
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