Top CEOs, mayors in secret meeting to push Rubio’s ‘job-crushing’ legislation.
A group of business leaders and progressive mayors is hosting a closed-door meeting in Washington today, pushing for a big increase in the number of foreign “guest workers” allowed into the United States to fill skilled positions.
The lobbying group, Partnership for a New American Economy, includes CEOs from Disney, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Marriott International among others, along with liberal mayors and former mayors like Julian Castro of San Antonio, Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Annise Parker of Houston and Michael Bloomberg of New York City.
A complete roster of PNAE’s membership rolls can be viewed on its website.
The main issue to be discussed at the secret meeting is how to gain passage of the I-Squared bill sitting in the U.S. Senate, co-sponsored by Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Orin Hatch, R-Utah, Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., Chris Coons, D-Del., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
The I-Squared bill would more than double the number of H-1B work visas handed out to foreigners with a bachelor’s degree or higher in a STEM field. The U.S. currently allows 65,000 of these visas per year but the corporate lobby is pushing Congress to up that number to at least 115,000 and possibly as high as 200,000, claiming there is a shortage of American tech workers with STEM degrees (science, technology, engineering and math).
[…]
