Obama intends to issue more green cards

Now we'll see who has the moral high ground on immigration. To date the Obama administration and its enablers have resorted lofty moralizing that has some appeal in the popular media. Yes, we must do right by Miguel and Rosa who have kept our pool clean and cooked for our children all these many years but there is more to the Obama immigration agenda than amnesty for illegals. The administration is also meeting with corporate lobbyist to expand the number of green card issued above the annual global limit of 366,000. As the Washington Post puts it "the administration also is weighing measures that would streamline the legal immigration system by reducing huge backlogs of foreigners hoping to obtain legal permanent residence."
So it's not only the illegals that are here who will be competing for American jobs it's future illegal immigrants and maybe up to 1 million per year legal immigrants. This is being done at the behest of mostly Silicon Valley companies. As the Valley has been the source of billions in campaign cash for Obama it now feels it is owed. Donors are now called stakeholders and treated with the same deference if not more than the La Raza crowd and infinitely more so than mere taxpayers.
Since the annual green card number is set in law the Obama administration hopes to apply it own interpretation. Under the law, 226,000 green cards are reserved for family reunification and 140,000 for employment in specialized fields, numbers that Congress established in 1990. The spouses and children of permanent U.S. residents and foreign workers have counted against the limits as well but under the proposed rule change only the holder would be counted. There is also a proposal to “recapture” unused worker visas from previous years. That change alone could allow for an estimated 200,000 additional visas for foreign high-tech workers.
At the center of of the lobbying effort is Compete America. Members include the usual suspect, Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce but also Analog Devices, Business Software Alliance, Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Motorola, National Semiconductor, Oracle, and Qualcomm.
This press release from Compete America's web site perhaps indicates Obama's strategy

“We welcome the news that the administration recognizes the positive impact highly skilled immigrants have on our economy. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced two proposed regulations that offer some hope. The first is a proposed rule to extend employment authorization to spouses of highly skilled immigrants while waiting for their green cards. These are taxpaying couples already living in America, raising their families, and contributing daily to U.S. job growth and our economy. The second is a proposal to enhance opportunities for certain groups of highly-skilled workers by removing obstacles to their remaining in the United States. Yet we know that much more must be done. As the Compete America Jobs Calculator has vividly demonstrated, the lack of highly skilled immigrants is costing us American jobs. We applaud the Administration for these proposed rules; but we urge Congress to act legislatively to enact immigration reform.”

If Republicans and the Tea Party can make the case to the public that the so called immigration reform is more about crony capitalism and corporate greed (which it is) it will be a cold November for Democrats.