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Contact:  Eric Thomas or Frances Cox, 202-822-9491

September 30, 2010

Compete America Praises Senators Menendez and Leahy for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Legislation

Washington, D.C. – Compete America, a coalition dedicated to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated and innovative workforce necessary to grow the economy and create American jobs – and a strong supporter of Comprehensive Immigration Reform –issued the following statement in support of the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010” (S. 3932), introduced yesterday by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and cosponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).

Compete America applauds Senators Menendez and Leahy for introducing the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 and providing a blueprint for long overdue broad reforms to America’s broken immigration system.

The employment-based green card provisions included in the CIR Act of 2010 will help advance economic recovery and job creation in America by allowing employers to keep top talent from around the world innovating in the United States.

Senators Menendez and Leahy have also recognized that it is crucial to improve compliance and enforcement within the temporary visa programs for highly educated foreign-born professionals so that those programs are reserved for responsible employers. But they have recognized as well that those programs benefit American workers and should not be modified in ways that limit employers from reaching greater heights in innovation, competitiveness and U.S. job growth. We commend them for these important provisions in the bill.

The CIR Act of 2010 shows that Senators Menendez and Leahy understand that future growth and job creation will be lead by innovation, and in today’s competitive global environment, America must do all it can to create and retain the talent that will drive that innovation. U.S. employers must be able to recruit and retain foreign-born highly educated professionals – particularly after they graduate from a U.S. university – as an important complement to domestic sources of talent.

Compete America will continue to work with all stakeholders to advocate for a comprehensive solution to fixing a broken immigration system that is essential to U.S. economic recovery and job creation, and we urge the Senate to move forward on this critical issue in an effective, bipartisan manner.

To learn more about the benefits of highly educated foreign professionals to the U.S. economy, visit www.competeamerica.org.

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Compete America (www.competeamerica.org) is a coalition of corporations, educators, research institutions and trade associations concerned about legal, employment-based immigration and committed to ensuring that the United States has the highly educated workforce necessary to ensure continued innovation, job creation and leadership in a worldwide economy.