Dear Editor,
Foreign Guyanese and other students who study one of the so called Stem (Science, Tech, Engineering, Maths) subjects will be allowed to live and work in the US for three years after graduation if a proposed bill from President Obama becomes law. Obama has proposed providing a six-year work permit to foreign students who graduate in those subjects. The US suffers from a shortage of Stem experts and have been wooing them mostly from India, China, and the Philippines. American universities have been offering countless scholarships to Indian and Chinese Stem students in graduate studies. Those foreign students who come to the US for graduate studies will also qualify under the proposed bill.
A student who graduates in a Stem subject could work for up to three years after graduation with a student status, then go on to get a master’s degree and work for three additional years after that.
Currently, foreign students are authorised to work for a 12-month period after graduation from a US degree programme. Foreign students graduating from Stem degree programmes are granted an additional 17 months of employment.
The new proposals have been submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to which the students in non-Stem categories would get a work permit for three years if they had an earlier Stem degree or even if they pursue a Stem programme.
Given that Guyanese foreign students are mainly in Stem courses, the proposal if implemented would benefit them. For it to be implemented, both the Senate and House must approve the legislation and it must be signed into law. Lawmakers are favourably disposed to the bill, though they are opposed to an amnesty for illegal immigrants. The Republican Congress had suggested a similar bill a few years ago to increase visas and green cards for Stem professionals to counter Obama’s limited amnesty for illegal immigrants. But Obama threatened a veto unless Congress adopted his amnesty measure for illegals. It appears that amnesty is dead in its tracks as it is tied up in a court battle.
Yours faithfully,
Vishnu Bisram
