Legislators purposely excluded biological sciences from a failed bill that would have provide 55,000 green cards a year to foreign graduates with advanced US degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, due to concern that competition for jobs in the life science sector is already too fierce.
“There is a very high unemployment rate in [the biological sciences] sector already,” an aide to Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), who sponsored the bill, titled the STEM Jobs Act told ScienceInsider. “It doesn't make sense to make it any harder” for US scientists to find a job in the biological sciences.”
Although the bill failed in the House last week (September 20), industry experts applauded the exclusion of biosciences from the proposal, also citing the current job market. “The people who wrote this bill seem to have done their homework,” Michael Teitelbaum, a demographer and senior adviser at the Albert P. ...
