Building Careers and Shaping Public Policy

27 September 2005

The Honorable James Sensenbrenner
Chair, House Judiciary Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
2449 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Mr. Chairman:

I am writing to communicate the support of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-United States of America (IEEE-USA) for H.R. 3648, a bill introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner to impose a $1,500 per application fee on L-1 Intra-Company Transfer visas. These visas are widely used by multi-national corporations to facilitate the admission of foreign employees to work temporarily in the United States as managers, executives and specialized knowledge workers.

If enacted, H.R. 3648 will help to ensure that a greater share of the cost of administering this important non-immigrant admissions program will be borne by the petitioning employers who are its principal beneficiaries instead of by U.S. taxpayers. It will prevent petitioning employers from shifting some or all their applications costs to individual visa holders. And by establishing parity between application fees charged for L and H-1B (Specialty Occupation) visas, it will remove a financial incentive for companies to apply for L visas in order to circumvent numerical limits on H-1B visas.

In addition to establishing the subject application fee, we would also encourage the Committee to consider using some or all of the resulting revenues to improve L-1 admissions program administration, including timely collection and publication of the utilization statistics needed for more effective evaluation and oversight.

IEEE-USA is an organizational unit of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc., created in 1973 to advance the public good, while promoting the careers and public-policy interests of the more than 225,000 technical professionals who are U.S. members of the IEEE. For more information, go to http://www.ieeeusa.org. If we can be of any assistance, please contact Vin O’Neill at IEEE-USA, (202) 785-0017 x 8327.
 

Sincerely,

Gerard A. Alphonse
President, IEEE-USA

(Similar letter sent to all members of House Judiciary Committee)