Bush wants H-1B visa cap hike

Posted by Jim Stroud

January 29, 2007

President Bush yesterday called for an increase in the federal cap on H-1B visas, an issue he said he feels “strongly” about and wants to work with Congress to make happen.Bush, who spoke at E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co. in Wilmington, Del., is on the road pushing some of the proposals (download PDF)made in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. More than 1,000 DuPont employees heard him talk, according to the company.

Bush did not mention H-1B visas in his Tuesday address to Congress, but at DuPont he told employees: “I also want you to know I understand that we need to make sure that when a smart person from overseas wants to come and work in DuPont, it’s in our interests to allow him or her to do so.” His remarks were included in a transcript of his speech to the DuPont workers.

“We’ve got to expand what’s called H-1B visas,” said Bush.The president went on to say, “I feel strongly about what I’m telling you. It makes no sense to say to a young scientist from India, ‘You can’t come to America to help this company develop technologies that help us deal with our problems.’ So we’ve got to change that…, change that mind-set in Washington, D.C. I know we can work together on that.”

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