Among Chinese immigrants, the Obama administration's plan to take another stab at immigration reform is a cause for celebration – and much hand-wringing as well. It is the undocumented immigrants who are celebrating, as they stand to benefit from the renewed discussion of granting them green cards. However, immigration reform is not such a happy topic for the sizable group of Chinese immigrants with H1B visas, who can expect to line up shoulder-to-shoulder with the nation's 12 million illegal immigrants to get green cards should Obama's plan go through.

At a recent forum on immigration reform held by the New York Community Media Alliance, this topic was conspicuously neglected; the groups in attendance, when pressed about the effects of immigration reform on the interests of immigrants with H1B visas, either avoided the question or appeared bewildered by it.

The forum was held yesterday (April 24) at the Fund for the City of New York. Speakers included Hector Figueroa of the 32BJ Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Gabriela Villareal of the New York Immigration Coalition, and Eddie Acosta of the AFL-CIO.

The speakers' remarks centered upon the benefits of granting green cards to undocumented immigrants and on this measure's importance for human rights; not once did they mention the situation of legal H1B immigrants. The reporter inquired whether, in the event of a general amnesty, these immigrants – who generally have entered the country legally, possess specialized skills, are attending school, and will become hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens after graduation – will have priority when being granted green cards, or will have to line up with the 12 million illegal immigrants. None of the three speakers answered directly.

Acosta admitted that he did not have an answer, merely saying that the mountains of current immigration applications need to be processed and resolved more quickly. Figueroa answered, irrelevantly, that the number of H1B visas should be increased, but that the core of the problem is that people with H1B visas still have to wait an interminable length of time to be granted green cards. Villareal carefully avoided the question, simply stating that now is not the time to discuss details.

A European student named Maria, currently studying at City College, said worriedly: "This issue has a very direct personal effect on me – I have an Indian instructor who has been waiting for eight years and still has not gotten his green card." A reporter of African background, doing occupational training for CUNY's television station, sighed: "I'm planning to immigrate using an H1B visa, does this mean that I'll have to wait in line with 12 million other people as well?"

In truth, the interests of H1B immigrants have been completely ignored both in this round of debate and in the one that took place two years ago. Immigrant groups claim to speak on behalf of "immigrants," but in actuality they merely represent the interests of undocumented immigrants, never mentioning the interests of immigrants working legally in this country.

But legal immigration is a crucial issue for the Chinese community, as thousands upon thousands of Asian students come to the United States every year to attend university, and all of these students must apply for green cards on H1B visas. In 2006, the Labor Department informed this newspaper that in that year a total of 124,792 people had applied for Labor Certificates, a necessary step in the green card application process for H1B immigrants. Of these applicants, 54.5 percent – 67,000 – were from Asian countries. The largest number came from India and China, and there was also a considerable number of Chinese emigrating from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. These statistics demonstrate that highly-educated Asians are immigrating to the United States in droves.

Zhang Zhongyue, an attorney, said that based on his past experiences, he would predict that people already applying for green cards would not be affected by an amnesty, but immigrants holding H1B visas who have not yet begun the process would be affected.