Senator Grassley Lifted Hold on H.R. 3012

• Senator Grassley put the following statement in The Congressional Record regarding lifting his hold on H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act.
  • Mr. President, Today, I lift my hold on H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act. This bill would eliminate the per-country numerical limitations for employment–based immigrants and change the per-country numerical limitations for family-based immigrants.
• For the full text which is released by the Senator Grassley, please click here. Since the H.R. 3012 will be amended, even if the Senate passes the bill, the bill will have to go back to the House for its action. There was also unconfirmed speculation that there could be an attempt by the Irish community to bring an amendment to this bill adding E-3 visa for Irish. This has yet to be confirmed. It is not confirmed that on what conditions, Sen. Chuck Shumer of New York agreed to the compromise. Readers may recall that it is Senator Churck Schumer who sponsored a bill attaching H.R. 3012 and E-3 visa for the Irish, including certain relief for undocumented Irish people. Indeed, the Irish community was divided on E-3 bill between Sen. Brown that sponsored only "legal" Irish E-3 visa bill, while Chuck Schumer sponsored undocumented Irish relief provision in the text. The Irish Community in New York supported such bill and the Irish community in Massachusetts opposed undocumented Irish relief bill, reflecting charateristics of two different Irish communities in the East Coast. We will watch carefully development of this bill. 

Bill Detail: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:h.r.3012: