Cornyn STAR Act Will Create Jobs by Keeping US Educated Highly Skilled Foreign Professionals in America

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Compete America, a coalition dedicated to ensuring thatthe United States has the highly educated workforce it needs to continue to lead the world in innovation and job creation, issued the following statement on Senator John Cornyn’s recent introduction of the “Securing the Talent America Requires for the 21st Century” or STAR Act:

“We applaud Senator Cornyn for recognizing that in these difficult economic times we must recruit and retain job creators in the United States,” said Compete America Executive Director, Scott Corley. “In US universities across our nation, we are graduating the world’s top engineering and scientific minds.  Among those graduates with Masters and PhDs in STEM related fields, half or more are from another country.  We are training the world’s best minds only to have our immigration system send a very clear message: go home and compete against America.”

The Cornyn STAR Act would give priority to employment-based immigrants to the US who are trained in US universities, providing tremendous relief to our overburdened employment-based system while incentivizing foreign Masters and PhD students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics or STEM to keep their talents in America.  “We see a clear link between talented, highly skilled foreign professionals and job creation in the United States,” said Peter Muller, Director of Government Relations for Intel.  “We know that this job creation will play a critical role not only in the continued recovery of our current economy but in the future of America’s growth as a world economic leader.”

“Senator Cornyn is a key leader in the United States Congress.  His interest in reforming our highly skilled immigration system is an important first step in the effort to move forward on key immigration reform this year that will benefit our country in a time of need,” said Gene Irisari, Director of Government Relations at Texas Instruments.  “We believe this legislation is important for America, and we look forward to working with Senator Cornyn and his colleagues in both parties to enact reasonable and balanced immigration reforms this year.”

Compete America thanks Senator Cornyn for taking this strong stand in favor of economic growth and new jobs.

To learn more about the benefits of highly educated foreign-born professionals to the U.S. economy, visitwww.competeamerica.org.