Patricia Tanona
International Economics
Final Term Paper

The United States’ quota based immigration system weakens the country’s ability to sustain its position in the increasingly competitive global economy. Although the United States has a substantial flexible labor market, huge international corporations and some of the best universities in the world, it faces great competition in the global labor market. With the increasing economic opportunities available in industrialized countries and the continually expanding economies of India and China the US needs to update its immigration policies to remain strong globally.
Immigration in the United States has been an assortment of changing policies in an attempt to accommodate the …show more content…

In 1987 AFL-CIO applauded IRCA as a far-reaching amnesty program.
1988-Senators Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming) co-sponsored legislation that would have led to a modest reduction in family-based immigration while creating additional visas for well-educated, English-speaking immigrants employed in occupations in which the U.S. suffered from labor shortages. The Kennedy-Simpson bill passed the Senate but never made it through the House.
1989-During the AFL-CIO convention a resolution was adopted that said they were opposed to increasing the number of employment based visas. They said it was better to invest in American workers.
1990-President George H.W. Bush's signing of the "Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1990" is often considered the day H-1B was born. Under the 1990 Act Visas for employment-based immigrants rose to 140,000 from the 58,000 cap established in 1976. The 1990 Act set an annual cap of 65,000 non immigrants entering the U.S. under H-1B visas. H-1B workers were given a 3 year visa with a possible extension for a total of six years. It specified that H-1B workers must hold at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent in their specialty field. The Act also required employers to pay H-1B workers the prevailing wage. In addition, the 1990 Act created three other new visa categories for skilled temporary workers--the H-1A visa for nurses and O and P visas for prominent scientists, educators, artists,