Opinion: Give us your talented, your athletic, your drop-dead gorgeous ...
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Immigration reform may be down and out, but it doesn’t mean Congress can’t agree on important immigration issues — such as ensuring that supermodels, singers and athletes have an easier time getting into the United States. From Sunday’s L.A. Times:
Even in polarized Washington, Democrats and Republicans can appreciate immigrants who throw a fast pitch, have a beautiful face or sing a catchy song. Bills to make it easier for athletes, fashion models and performers, such as British singer Amy Winehouse, to work in the United States have enthusiastic support, even from some of the most hard-nosed immigration critics.
Yep, this is what immigration legislation has been reduced to in the name of progress. Not that I’m complaining — a little reform is better than none at all, right?
The legislation does deal with a more pressing problem: Many models have to apply for an H-1B skilled worker visa. This further limits the number of those priceless documents available to tech companies, which face a desperate annual scramble for international talent. But there is a solution in the making:
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) proposed a solution that could address Silicon Valley’s hunger for skilled foreigners and benefit his city’s fashion industry. His bill would create a new category for those models, probably limited to about 1,000 five-year visas, and would free up H-1B visas for more engineers.
Ranking subcommittee member Lamar Smith (R-Texas) had something to say about that:
He said he could picture Weiner (who is single, handsome and 43) ‘in a posh downtown New York City hotel celebrating the passage of this bill surrounded by hundreds of energized, wildly ecstatic fashion models. And you know for a fact he’s going to have an annual celebration. It’s almost too much to bear.’Smith paused. ‘But not too much to oppose the bill.’