U.S. Chamber of Commerce: On Second Thought, H-1B Isn’t for the ‘Best and Brightest’ After All!

Summary

• H-1B advocates have long proclaimed that this temporary visa program for foreign workers in “specialty occupations” provides visas for “the best and the brightest”. Advocates make this claim in the context of lobbying for higher H-1B visa allotments. They also make it to counter longstanding concerns that the H-1B program is in large measure used by employers simply to access cheap labor by foreign workers who are far from “the best and the brightest”.
• Advocates’ talking points over the years have proclaimed that the H-1B program’s “original intent” was to “attract[] the best and brightest foreign talent” and that “[i]f U.S. companies do not gain immediate access to the best and brightest” through more H-1B visas, “America’s competitive advantage will decline”.
• But President Trump has concluded that “[t]he H-1B … program … has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor” and that “[s]ome employers, using practices now widely adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages”. He found it “necessary to impose higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of that program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers.” Thus, President Trump ordered that the entry into the United States of H-1B workers be “restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000”.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is asking a federal court to strike down President Trump’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee. The Chamber argues that Congress never intended the H-1B program to be for the “best and brightest”, that “by congressional design, employers need not show that their prospective [H-1B] workers are the best of the best, but merely highly skilled”, that “the imposition of such a ‘best of the best’ requirement … would trample Congress’s duly enacted policy choices” and that it would “undercut[] the very existence of the [H-1B] program.” The Chamber doesn’t even think that the H-1B program should be for “the best and brightest”, arguing that this “misguided policy” would “inflict significant harm on American businesses”. These are stunning arguments fly in the face of three decades of H-1B advocates’ talking points. And they are also stunning because an H-1B worker will still be far cheaper for an employer paying a $100,000 fee (spread over six years of work) than an average American software developer.
• Why would the Chamber publicly undermine a decades-long industry advocacy effort? I presume that its lawyers concluded that the Chamber’s repudiation of “the best and the brightest” claims would strengthen its legal argument that President Trump’s $100,000 fee is unlawful. But whether or not the Chamber’s case is strengthened in court, this is going to hand H-1B advocates a loss in the court of public opinion. As such, I would consider it political malpractice.

Are H-1B Foreign Workers “the Best and the Brightest”?

Over the three decades I have followed and participated in efforts to reform the H-1B visa program, H-1B advocates have consistently proclaimed that it provides crucial access for “the best and the brightest” foreign workers. Advocates make this claim in the context of lobbying for higher H-1B visa allotments. They also make it to counter longstanding concerns by advocates for American workers that the H-1B program is in large measure used by employers simply to access cheap labor by foreign workers who are far from “the best and the brightest”. 

As to those concerns, in 2019, Ronil Hira, associate professor of political science at Howard University, and Bharath Gopalaswamy, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council, concluded that “[b]y every objective measure, most H-1B workers have no more than ordinary skills, skills that are abundantly available in the US labor market.” 

“By every objective measure, most H-1B workers have no more than ordinary skills, skills that are abundantly available in the US labor market.” 

And in 2013, Norman Matloff, professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, and longtime advocate for U.S. citizen and legal permanent resident workers and students, concluded that “the data show that most of the foreign tech workers are ordinary folks doing ordinary work”. Matloff believes that “[w]e should of course support facilitating the immigration of ‘the best and the brightest.’” But in 2008, he explained in a piece for the Center for Immigration Studies that “foreign students in the U.S. tend to be concentrated in the less-selective universities, and … they receive a lower percentage of research awards relative to their numbers in the student population”. In 2013, he concluded that “former [foreign computer science] students [at American universities] apply for somewhat fewer patents than do their American peers” and “are significantly less likely to be working in R&D than the Americans”. And that same year, he concluded that “In the computer science case, the former foreign students are in fact generally of significantly lower talent in many aspects than Americans of the same age, education, and so on.” (Emphasis in the original. All emphases in subsequent quotations are added, except where otherwise indicated.)

And earlier this year, I explained that since the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates that the nationwide median salary for software developers was $132,270 in 2023, the $99,000 average salary for new H-1B workers in computer-related occupation (CRO) that year was only 74.8 percent of what software developers were paid overall — fully 25.2 percent less. 

What about high-paid (among H-1Bs) new H-1B CRO workers? U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services reports that for petitions approved in 2023, the annual salary for new H-1B CRO workers at the 75th wage percentile (the top quartile) was $126,000. Thus, even relatively highly paid H-1B CRO workers were paid less (4.7 percent less) than the average U.S. software developer.

How do the salaries of H-1B CRO workers compare with high-paid software developers overall? BLS estimates that in 2023 the salary for software developers at the 75th percentile nationwide was $167,540 and at the 90th percentile was $208,620. Thus, an average new H-1B CRO worker in 2023 was paid only 59.1 percent of the salary of a top-quartile software programmer (i.e. 40.9 percent less), and only 47.5 percent of the salary of a top-decile software programmer (i.e. 52.5 percent less).

Not only do these wage disparities lead to both wage depression and a decrease in employment opportunities for American workers, they also cast doubt on whether H-1B CRO workers are by and large “the best and the brightest”. For, as DHS has concluded, “salary generally is a reasonable proxy for skill level” and “earning the highest wages in an occupational classification and area of intended employment … correlates with higher skill levels”. 

President Trump has concluded that:

The H-1B … program … has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor…. Some employers, using practices now widely adopted by entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its regulations to artificially suppress wages . . . 

Among computer and math occupations, the foreign share of the workforce grew from 17.7 percent in 2000 to 26.1 percent in 2019. And the key facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labor has been the abuse of the H-1B visa. . . .

Reports also indicate that many American tech companies have laid off their qualified and highly skilled American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of H-1B workers. . . .

The high numbers of relatively low-wage workers in the H-1B program undercut the integrity of the program and are detrimental to American workers’ wages and labor opportunities . . .

Industry’s “Best and Brightest” Talking Points

Here are glimpses of the picture H-1B advocates have painted of the program over the years:

• On October 16, 1998, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) issued a press release in which its Executive Director Jeanne Butterfield stated that H-1B legislation just passed by Congress “will ensure that America remains the high-tech mecca of the world…. [and] our country’s competitive edge will not be paralyzed by the inability to welcome some of the world’s best and brightest, many of whom to date have been locked in an unfortunate [H-1B] backlog”.
• On November 21, 2006, “Over 900 American Businesses, Universities, and Hospitals” sent a letter to members of Congress stating that:
  • Companies seeking access to the best and brightest global talent have been confronted with an unprecedented sixteen-month restriction on access to new H-1B temporary professional employees and multi-year delays in [employment-based] green cards for permanent hires. . . . If U.S. companies do not gain immediate access to the best and brightest, our competitors on the global stage will continue to advance and America’s competitive advantage will decline.
• On May 21, 2013, the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI, “the premier global advocate for technology, representing the world’s most innovative companies”) published a blog post stating that “[h]igh-skilled programs, such as the H-1B visa, help to ensure that the world’s best and the brightest come to the United States to deploy their skills, boosting the competitiveness of our companies and leading to new American jobs.”

• On April 21, 2014, the American Immigration Council (AIC) issued a press release in which John Feinblatt, Chairman of New American Economy (NAE) and Chief Policy Advisor to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, stated:

  • Two weeks ago, we saw the annual H-1B visa cap reached in less than a week and watched America’s outdated immigration laws put our fastest-growing start-ups on hold[.] The message from our nation’s leading entrepreneurs is clear: pass immigration reform now or lose the world’s best talent and technologies to other countries.” 

  NAE/Partnership for a New American Economy is “a bipartisan research and advocacy organization” that “brings together more than 500 Republican, Democratic, and Independent mayors and business leaders who support immigration reform as a way of creating jobs for Americans today”. It has since merged with AIC.

• On September 24, 2024, Compete America Executive Director Scott Corley sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas stating that “[b]y prioritizing the economic agency of foreign workers, the new system [proposed by President Biden’s DHS] better aligns the H-1B program with its original intent of attracting the best and brightest foreign talent to fill undersupplied specialty occupations in the U.S. labor market while reducing fraud and misuse of the program.” 

  Compete America – whose coalition members include Amazon, AILA, Apple, Cisco, fwd.us, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, ITI, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Paypal, Salesforce, Samsung, the Semiconductor Industry Assn., Texas Instruments, and the Chamber – “believe[s] it’s time to put America first through education and highly skilled immigration reform”.

Even more examples of “the best and the brightest” talking points over the years can be found in the Appendix.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has long been ensconced in “the best and the brightest” echo chamber. The Chamber is “the world’s largest business organization”, which the State Department has described as “representing nearly three million companies, 2,800 state and local chambers, 830 business associations and over 100 American Chambers of Commerce abroad”. On August 26, 2019, the Chamber published a piece by Jon Baselice, its then Vice President for Immigration Policy, stating that: 

The simple fact is that other countries are becoming more competitive in their fight for the world’s share of the “best and brightest.” Our policies sorely need updating to ensure that the U.S. maintains and builds upon its stature as the number one destination for the leaders of tomorrow. Congress and the President must update our nation’s legal immigration system to provide more opportunities for international students at U.S. universities to obtain nonimmigrant work visas [primarily H-1B visas] and permanent residency once they graduate.

Then, just days ago, on October 16, 2025, the Chamber published H-1B Visas: What You Need to Know, stating that:

Economic research consistently shows H-1B workers function as complements rather than substitutes for American workers…. Retaining the best and brightest, many of whom trained in highly respected U.S. universities, will help America innovate and compete globally, and that leads to more growth and high paying jobs for all Americans.

Also on October 16, the Chamber published a statement by Neil Bradley, its Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer, noting that “the Chamber shares” President Trump’s goal “to educate, attract, and retain the world’s best and brightest in the U.S.”

The Chamber of Commerce Rips Up the Talking Points

On that same day, October 16, the Chamber announced that it had “filed a legal challenge to the [Trump] administration’s $100,000 fee on H-1B visa petitions”. On September 19, President Trump had issued a proclamation confirming the deleterious effects of the H-1B program on American workers and concluding that “[i]t is therefore necessary to impose higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of that program while still permitting companies to hire the best of the best temporary foreign workers.” President Trump ordered that “[p]ursuant to section[] 212(f) … of the Immigration and Nationality Act [INA] … the entry into the United States of [H-1B] aliens … is restricted, except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied or supplemented by a payment of $100,000”. I have written in detail here about President Trump’s proclamation and the $100,000 entry fee.

OK, you’d better sit down for the next part.

In its complaint in U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. DHS filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Chamber argued that Congress had never intended the H-1B program to be for the “best and brightest”! This is a stunning argument that flies in the face of three decades of H-1B advocates’ talking points. 

The Chamber’s complaint stated that:

[President Trump’s] Proclamation intends to radically alter the H-1B program…. It drastically increases prospective labor costs, and basic economics dictates that companies will therefore hire fewer H-1B workers. Indeed, that is the stated intent of the Proclamation, which is aimed at reducing the pool of H-1B applicants to “the best of the best” . . . 

That result—and the means taken to implement it—is flatly contrary to Congress’s directives, as stated throughout the INA.

The complaint further contended that:

[E]ven to the extent the Proclamation could be successful in admitting only “the best of the best,” it distorts Congress’s design for the H-1B program. There are already separate provisions in the INA enabling companies to sponsor visas for prospective employees with “exceptional ability,” “extraordinary ability,” or other comparable qualities, and those noncitizens are eligible for immigrant visas [referring to subcategories of the first and second preference employment-based immigrant visa categories]…. The H-1B program is different. By congressional design, employers need not show that their prospective [H-1B] workers are the best of the best, but merely highly skilled. The statutory tradeoff is that workers on H-1B status are only eligible for a temporary stay in this country. [The underlined text is in the original.] . . .

[E]ven assuming that employers willing and able to pay a $100,000 fee correlated precisely with the “best of the best” talent, the imposition of such a “best of the best” requirement on the H-1B program would trample Congress’s duly enacted policy choices. 

The Chamber’s complaint went so far as to argue that Trump’s proclamation’s “best and brightest” approach “undercuts the very existence of the [H-1B] program.” This is a stunning argument because an H-1B worker will still be far cheaper for an employer paying a $100,000 fee (spread over six years of work) than an average American software developer.

Congress designed the H-1B program so that employers could import “merely highly skilled” workers? I’m not going to challenge this contention, because it is not at all clear that Congress did have “the best and the brightest” in mind when it created the H-1B program in the “Immigration Act of 1990”. My colleague John Miano has written of “Congress’s H-1B Kabuki theater production whose role is to give the false appearance that there are protections for American workers in the H-1B program”. But, that isn’t my point. My point is that the CoC itself is claiming that H-1B visas are for the “merely highly skilled” despite industry’s well-oiled lobbying machine that for decades has equated the H-1B program with “the best and the brightest”.

Putting aside congressional intent, the complaint makes it crystal clear that the Chamber doesn’t even think that the H-1B program should be for “the best and brightest”. The Chamber’s complaint argues that President Trump’s proclamation is “misguided policy” that would “inflict significant harm on American businesses”, either by making H-1B workers “practically unavailable for many companies” or by causing a “classic pocketbook injury” by “drastically increas[ing] prospective labor costs” for employers who can pay the fee.

But even if this is what the Chamber believes, why would it publicly admit as much and undermine a decades-long advocacy effort? I presume that the Chamber’s lawyers concluded that its repudiation of “the best and the brightest” claims would strengthen its legal argument that President Trump’s $100,000 fee is unlawful. Or maybe the Chamber just didn’t think that anyone would ever bother reading its court filings. But whether or not the Chamber’s case is strengthened in court, this is going to hand H-1B advocates a loss in the court of public opinion. As such, I would consider it political malpractice.

Compete America

On September 27, 2007, “[o]n behalf of Compete America, a coalition of corporations, trade associations, and educators, and other undersigned organizations and companies” sent a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stating: 

[W]e urge Congress to remain focused on taking steps this year to address the highly-skilled immigration crisis facing U.S. employers by reforming the H-1B visa and employment-based green card systems. . . .

We greatly appreciate your strong commitment to improving the competitiveness of the United States…. [Y]ou have demonstrated your commitment to keep America competitive in the world economy and you have recognized that allowing the best and brightest minds to come to the U.S. is an important component in achieving this goal. 

Signatories included AILA, the Altria Group, the Business Roundtable, the Business Software Alliance, Cargill, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, Exxon Mobil, Genetech, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Ingersoll Rand, the Information Technology Association of America, ITI, Intel, Microsoft, Motorola, the National Association of Manufacturers, Nokia, Oracle, the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Software & Information Industry Association, the Technology CEO Council, Texas Instruments, and the Chamber.

Bill Gates

On March 7, 2007, Bill Gates, then Chairman of Microsoft Corp., testified at a hearing held by the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Strengthening American Competitiveness in the 21st Century. 

Mr. Gates testified that: 

[W]e need to reform our immigration policies for high-skilled workers so that we can be sure our workforce includes the world’s most talented people. . . .

America’s always done its best when we bring the best minds to our shores. . . .

We have to welcome the great minds in this world, not shut them out of our country. 

Unfortunately, our immigration policies are driving away the world’s best and brightest, precisely when we need them the most. The fact is that the terrible shortfall in the visa supply for highly skilled scientists and engineers stems from visa policies that have not been updated in more than 15 years. We live in a different economy now, and it makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals, many of whom are educated at our top universities, that they’re not welcome here.

I see the negative effect of these policies everyday at Microsoft….

For 2007, the supply of H-1B visas ran out 4 years before the fiscal year even began. For 2008, they will run out even earlier, well before degree candidates graduate. So, for the first time ever, we will not be able to seek H-1Bs for this year’s graduating students. The wait times for green cards routinely reach 5 years, and are even longer for scientists and engineers from India and China, key recruiting grounds for skilled, technical professionals. 

In his written testimony, Mr. Gates stated that:

[W]e need to attract and retain the brightest, most talented people from around the world. This will not happen until we reform our immigration policies for highly skilled workers. America should be doing all it can to attract the world’s best and brightest. Instead, we are shutting them out and discouraging those already here from staying and contributing to our economic prosperity. . . .

This should be deeply troubling to us, both in human terms and in terms of our own economic self-interest. America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete. Other nations are recognizing and benefiting from this situation. They are crafting their immigration policies to attract highly talented students and professionals who would otherwise study, live, and work here. Our lost opportunities are their gains.

I personally witness the ill effects of these policies on an almost daily basis at Microsoft. Under the current system, the number of H-1B visas available runs out faster and faster each year. The current base cap of 65,000 is arbitrarily set and bears no relation to U.S. industry’s demand for skilled professionals. For fiscal year 2007, the supply did not last even 8 weeks into the filing period, and ran out more than 4 months before that fiscal year even began.

For fiscal year 2008, H-1Bs are expected to run out next month, the first month that it is possible to apply for them. This means that no new H-1B visas—often the only visa category available to recruit critically needed professional workers—will be available for a nearly 18-month period. Moreover, this year, for the first time in the history of the program, the supply will run out before the year’s graduating students get their degrees. This means that U.S. employers will not be able to get H1B visas for an entire crop of U.S. graduates. We are essentially asking top talent to leave the United States. . . .

In the past, we have succeeded in attracting the world’s best and brightest to study and work in the United States, and we can and must do it again. We must move beyond the debate about numbers, quotas, and caps. . . .

These reforms do not pit U.S. workers against those foreign born. They do not seek to make or perpetuate distinctions among the best and brightest on the basis of national origin. They simply recognize the fact that America’s need for highly skilled workers has never been greater, and that broad-based prosperity in America depends on having enough such workers to satisfy our demand. Far from displacing U.S. workers, highly skilled foreign-born workers will continue to function as they always have: as net job creators. 

The American Immigration Lawyers Association

On September 25, 1998, AILA issued a press release quoting its Executive Director Jeanne Butterfield as stating:

This legislation will ensure that America’s competitive edge is not paralyzed by its inability to reach some of the world’s best and the brightest, many of whom are locked in a backlog[.] The H-1B legislation will provide enough visas this year to avoid major backlogs and disruptions in research and production. 

On October 4, 2004, AILA issued a press release stating: 

A select number of H-1B professionals are graduates from U.S. top universities’ Master’s and PhD programs. In the graduate-level math and sciences programs, foreign nationals represent roughly half of all graduates. “Prohibiting access to these world-class minds raises troubling issues,” said [AILA’s president Paul] Zulkie. “Not only would U.S. employers miss out on American-educated talent, but we would be handing this talent to our competitors abroad.” Indeed, foreign countries are updating their immigration policies to attract this highly educated talent, making the competition to retain the best and the brightest that much more difficult for the United States to win.

 On April 17, 2007, AILA made available a “Model H-1B Letter to Members of Congress” for advocates to send, stating that:

 As the situation now stands, companies seeking access to the best and brightest global talent must now wait until April 1, 2008 to begin the application process for hiring an H-1B, highly-skilled worker for FY 2009, which does not start until October 1, 2008. It is untenable for American businesses to be cut-off from this talent pool until late next year.

Far from harming U.S. workers and the U.S. economy, highly educated foreign professionals benefit our country by allowing U.S. employers to develop new products, undertake groundbreaking research, implement new projects, expand operations, create additional new jobs, and compete in the global marketplace…. Every day that passes without access to these highly-skilled workers is a lost opportunity for growth, productivity, and innovation. If U.S. companies do not have the ability to hire the best and brightest from around the world, our international competitors will continue to hire away these talented workers, causing our nation’s competitive advantage to suffer.

On April 1, 2009, AILA issued a press release in which its President Charles H. Kuck stated that “[t]he H-1B is supposed to allow U.S. employers to hire the best and brightest from around the globe to help innovate and spark business growth[.]” 

On May 28, 2009, AILA published a blog post by its past President Deborah Notkin stating:

[O]ur professional visa program is important to keep the best and brightest foreign students, who make up a substantial amount of our engineering, science and technology graduates from US universities. We know from all the authoritative research that we need to improve US education in these fields from kindergarten on up but in the meantime, our global competitiveness depends on our innovative industries to be able to get the professionals that they need. And the US labor market does not provide the needed talent in sufficient numbers. It is one thing to look at what may be problematic with the H-1b program and fix it, either through enforcement or regulatory change. It is quite another matter to nix it.

On April 1, 2014, AILA published a blog by past President Eleanor Pelta stating: 

Today thousands of U.S. employers large and small are buying lottery tickets hoping they will win the right to employ a highly skilled, well-educated professional.

This is not an April Fools’ joke. 

Unfortunately, this is the system under which the nation that sees itself as the world’s leading economy allows its businesses to hire the best and the brightest from around the world: the H-1B visa “lottery.”

On March 8, 2019, AILA published a blog post by its president Jennifer Minear stating:

[W]e don’t protect U.S. workers by shutting out the best foreign talent whose presence here could – as it has always done – drive innovation and ingenuity in ways that strengthen our economy, increase our shared prosperity, and create more jobs for Americans. We don’t need to re-configure the logistical administration of the outdated and ill-equipped H-1B system that we have.

On June 22, 2020, AILA issued a press release stating:

[AILA] denounces President Trump’s decision to block access to certain nonimmigrant workers until at least the end of the year, including H-1B H-2B, J-1 and L-1 nonimmigrants. . . .

AILA President Jennifer Minear stated…. [“]Being able to draw on the best and the brightest from around the world has always been an incredible advantage for America. This Presidential Proclamation ignores this reality. . . .”

On October 7, 2020 AILA issued a press release regarding DHS and DOL H-1B program rules in which its President Jennifer Minear stated that “[t]hese rules will undoubtedly hamstring a process proven to bring some of the world’s best and brightest into American businesses.” 

On December 2, 2020, AILA and the AIC submitted joint comments as to DHS proposed H-1B regulations stating: 

The agency’s over-simplistic attempt to correlate the salary of a worker to their value to the U.S. economy will have the exact opposite effect the agency claims it will achieve: many of the world’s “best and brightest” will no longer have an opportunity to continue their career progression in the U.S. and will seek employment opportunities abroad from our global competitors in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, China, India, and beyond.

The proposed regulation will create barriers for employers attempting to assemble diverse research and development teams in the U.S. composed of the “best and brightest” talent graduating from our nation’s colleges and universities.

The Information Technology Industry Council

On May 7, 2017, the ITI published a blog titled “H1-B Visas: American Innovation Hinges on a Chance for the Best and Brightest” stating that:

Earlier today, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced the agency has received enough H-1B petitions to meet the total statutory cap of 85,000 visas allotted under law for fiscal year (FY) 2018. . . .

Once again, the agency will be forced to turn away some of the best and brightest people we need to create new technologies and grow our economy. Instead, they will be welcomed elsewhere to compete against the United States. 

Fwd.us

Fwd.us is “a bipartisan political organization that believes America’s families, communities, and economy thrive when more individuals are able to achieve their full potential” and believes that “we must … pursue bold reforms that position America as the destination of choice for the world’s best and brightest”. On April 10, 2014, NBC News reported that Kate Hansen, a spokesperson for FWD.us, told said that “[w]e need to fix our broken immigration system and ensure that our country continues to be a magnet for the best and the brightest, including those who would be eligible to contribute on H-1B visas”.

New American Economy

New American Economy/Partnership for a New American Economy (NAE) is “a bipartisan research and advocacy organization” that “brings together more than 500 Republican, Democratic, and Independent mayors and business leaders who support immigration reform as a way of creating jobs for Americans today”. It has merged with the American Immigration Council (AIC).

On April 5, 2013, the AIC issued a press release in which John Feinblatt, Chairman of the NAE and Chief Policy Advisor to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, stated that:

The fact that our supply of H-1B visas was exhausted so quickly is not only emblematic of our broken immigration system – it represents yet another missed opportunity to attract the world’s best and brightest to our shores. If we want to stay competitive and thrive in the global marketplace, we need to make sure that our immigration laws fit the needs of our economy. Sitting still risks the world passing us by . . .