The following is an open letter to members of the Connecticut Section of IEEE from Russell Harrison, Senior Legislative Representative - Grassroots Activities.   Please note that any attachments that he refers to have been converted to links to online documents.

You are probably aware that Congress is in the middle of debating a comprehensive immigration reform bill.  While most of the bill has little to do with IEEE members, large parts of the bill will directly impact technology engineers.  It is important that your members understand what Congress is doing while there is still time to affect the outcome.

I've attached a quick summary of the high-skill provisions found in the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill (S. 744).  Overall, the bill is not great for engineers, but it is not nearly as bad as we feared.  The H-1B temporary visa cap goes up, but less than we expected.  Better yet, there are some very good reforms of the H-1B and L visas in the bill.

Most importantly, the bill increases the number of EB green cards available to skilled immigrants, especially international students at American universities who earn advanced degrees in STEM fields.  This should allow international STEM students who want to become Americans to do so in a reasonable amount of time.

IEEE-USA is not endorsing S. 744, but we are not opposing it yet either.  We hope to get a few more good reforms tucked into it, and perhaps pull the cap down a bit, before the bill is finalized.

But first, we have to protect the gains we've already made.  As the attached summary explains, Sen. Hatch (R-UT) is going to introduce an amendment in the Judiciary Committee next week to remove most of the worker protections from the bill and further increase the H-1B cap.

This would be disastrous for the high-tech workforce in the U.S.  If passed, it could allow companies to bring the equivalent of 60% of the entire American engineering workforce into the U.S. within 6 years.  The majority of these workers would be used to replace American workers, pushing down wages and raising unemployment.

One of your Senators, Sen. Blumenthal, sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and will have a crucial vote on the Hatch Amendment.  I need your help to alert engineers in Connecticut (and other states) to the situation, and ask them to help convince Sen. Blumenthal not to support Hatch's changes. 

Please forward this e-mail to your membership, along with the two attachments.  Engineers who are concerned about an H-1B expansion should contact all of their legislators, but especially Sen. Blumenthal, and ask them to oppose the amendment.  I've attached a sample letter that can be used as a guide, but everyone should re-write it in their own words.  E-Mail can be sent at www.senate.gov or www.house.gov.

This is a very complicated and emotional issue.  If you or anyone else has questions or concerns about the bill, please pass them on to me.

Thank you for your help. 

--
Russell Harrison
Senior Legislative Representative - Grassroots Activities
IEEE-USA
2001 L St, NW: Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 530-8326

CT Science Fair IEEE Special Award Recipients
Student	Project	Award
Ian Vaca	The Use of Pulse Width Modulation for Sensory Input Control of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in the C++ Programming Language	Honors-Senior
Evan Windsor	Robotic Rubik's Cube Solver	Honors-Junior
Bridget Oei	Integration of Photovoltaic and Peltier-Seebeck Thermoelectric Effects to Optimize the Power Density of a Hybrid Solar Panel	Honorable Mention
Dylan Hawkes	Optimization of Multi-Layered Feed-Forward Artificial Neural Networks for Various Applications	Honorable Mention
Arvene Golbazi	The Effect of Lead Particles on the Electrical Resistivity of Multi- Walled Carbon Nanotubes	Honorable Mention
Emily O’Connor	A Study of Variables That Affect Robot Mobility and Line Following	Honorable Mention
Kamila Krawczuk	Amp Up Your Knowledge About Electricity	Honorable Mention

- Report submitted by Bill Wessman, CT-Science Fair Liaison

The 2013 Engineers Week Dinner Meeting was held February 12th at the Baci Grill Restaurant, 134 Berlin Road (Route 372) in Cromwell, Connecticut. The buffet dinner was followed by two guest speakers, who gave followup presentations on the presentations they made last year.

The first to speak was Allen Herring, the Chief Engineer of the newly formed Department of Construction Services. There is now a new emphasis on the review of large building project (especially schools) designs using a technique known as Building Information Modeling (B.I.M.) which is created in 3 dimensions.  This reduces problems of the various utilities such as electrical, plumbing, H.V.A.C., & other mechanicals interfering with with each other as work progresses. Sort of a whole building approach. He cited the need for more trained building inspectors for closer review of the work in progress as well as when the project is completed.

The next speaker was Tom Harley, Chief Engineer of the Department of Transportation (D.O.T.)  He described a proposal called "Accelerated Bridge Construction" where an entire bridge and/or road would be fully closed during reconstruction for a shorter period of time rather than construct a series of bypasses and detours for an extended period of time and doing the work piecemeal. This would shorten the overall constriction time and realize a considerable cost saving along with greater performance accountability throughout the project.

There were 72 in attendance with three exhibitors' display tables. Most of the exhibitors represented risk management, insurance and project management firms.

- Report submitted by Bradford Elker, Member-at-Large

The following members of IEEE were nominated in September 2012 and have attained by acclamation the following positions on the 2013 Executive Committee:

As well, on Tuesday, January 8, the Executive Committee made the following two appointments:

Alisha Chaney to PACE Chair
John Gallichote to Member at Large

Congratulations and thank you to all!