Unfortunately this is not going to be resolved without our federal government going through the painful gyrations of partisan politics. The OP mentions the Dem

Unfortunately this is not going to be resolved without our federal government going through the painful gyrations of partisan politics. The OP mentions the Democratic Party (and the Obama White House) and its opposition to HR 6429, which basically "trades" 55,000 'diversity' visas for the same number of STEM visas. This was actually discussed on HN a few months ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4845982 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4845982). The OP says: "I would have voted for visas for 50,000 smart foreign students graduating with STEM degrees from U.S. universities over bringing in 55,000 randomly selected high-school graduates from abroad." In short, he says he would have made the trade. Unfortunately, Republicans would love nothing more than to do this on immigration and call it day. To independent/swing voters, they can brag that they're not intolerant of immigrants, and in fact authored legislation that opens the doors to 55,000 immigrants exceptional in STEM. To their base, they can say there is no net increase in immigration, and they've resisted on any leniency to the immigrants currently here in the US, including the poisonous word "amnesty." The OP claims to support elements of comprehensive immigration reform, but then basically says, "well our technology industry is suffering, and there seems to some common ground there, so can't you just agree to more STEM visas and fix the H1-B system and then go back to arguing about amnesty?" This just isn't going to happen, because there will no longer be an argument -- Republicans will just resist any further attempts at reform. So I am glad this is the stance of people like Congressman Gutierrez. The OP said: "I hate to say this, but women in Saudi Arabia have more rights than the spouses/wives of H-1B workers; it’s inhuman the way we treat them and destroy careers and families." Well, that is a problem with our current immigration problem, but we have other problems too, such as the 22 million illegal (or undocumented, if you prefer that term) immigrants in the US. They are not exactly sitting flush with their rights, careers, and families. We need comprehensive reform because we have a comprehensive problem. So ultimately the OP just comes across to me as, "fix what I want, even though politically, it will basically ensure that other people interested in other parts of immigration reform will get fucked." At best it's naive. At worse it's selfish. And if you want federal government representatives that don't have to go through such stupid partisan gyrations, then you should do everything you can to elect different representatives.