House Democrats defeated the broadest immigration reform effort yet in this Congress, voting down a bill on Thursday that would have ended the random visa lottery and replaced it with a system rewarding high-tech foreign graduates from U.S. universities.
The vote showed neither side is ready to break the stalemate that has foiled every major immigration bill for the past decade.
This latest effort would have tried to rewrite the country’s immigration priorities, shifting away from random chance and toward picking skilled workers that Republicans said could boost the U.S. economy.
“Unfortunately, Democrats today voted to send the best and brightest foreign graduates back home to work for our global competitors,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, who wrote the bill. “Democrats voted against a bill that helps American businesses hire the most qualified foreign graduates.”
Most Democratic opponents said they didn’t oppose visas for high-tech graduates, but objected to canceling the random chance visa lottery. Democrats said the lottery is a key way that the U.S. gets immigrants from countries that don’t have long-standing business or family ties to the United States.
Black, Hispanic and Asian Democrats all urged their colleagues to block the move.
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