When I first heard about this I was certain it was a joke since it was presented as ‘back in the day Rep. Weiner introduced a bill to bring in more smokin’ hot babes from overseas’. But actually, that’s more or less what he did.
Back in 2008 Weiner introduced a bill to make it easier for high-end foreign models to enter the United States. Specifically, it would allow them to move out of the H1-B Visa line (generally for tech nerds, doctors, scientists, etc.) and into the P Visa line which is generally for entertainers and athletes.
As a comparatively boring side note, H1-B visas are a huge part of the equation in the current immigration debate – with business, particularly the tech sector, wanting many, many more of these and generally wanting to reframe immigration policy around economic impact and productivity.
But back to the models, the amendment clear this couldn’t just be a catalog model or a stripper but had to be high end or in the words of the bill …
a fashion model who is of distinguished merit and ability and who is seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform fashion modeling services that involve events or 17 productions which have a distinguished reputation or that are performed for an organization or establishment that has a distinguished reputation for, or a record of, utilizing prominent modeling talent;
Here’s the full text of the amendment for your perusal.
