The Senate plans to resume work on a controversial immigration bill this week, which will focus on proposals for granting legal status to illegal immigrants. Meanwhile, technology bigwigs like Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, among others, are urging lawmakers to provide more visas for temporary foreign workers and permanent immigrants. These executives have been quick to point out that many of Silicon Valley's best and brightest are immigrants, including Google's co-founder, Sergey Brin, who came from the Soviet Union as a young boy. Google officials have said that to stay competitive in a "knowledge-based economy," the company needs to hire many more immigrants as software engineers, mathematicians and computer scientists. Currently, the debate centers on the fact that high-tech companies want to be able to hire larger numbers of well-educated, foreign-born professionals who, they say, can help them succeed in the global economy. The Senate bill would expand the number of work visas for skilled professionals, but high-tech companies say the proposed increase is not nearly enough.

Read more on current visa legislation:
- see this New York Times article