Raja Krishnamoorthi and the Case for More Skilled Immigration
Raja Krishnamoorthi came from India as an infant and rose through Princeton, Harvard, and Illinois politics. He is a moderate, not a radical, and that is the point: he is the establishment face of the case for expanding the high-skilled immigration the Nation of Settlers wants to cut.
- Origin
- India
- Pathway
- Family / chain
- Citizenship
- Naturalized citizen
- Religion
- Hindu
- Caucus
- New Democrat
- First elected
- 2016
Key Findings
Raja Krishnamoorthi was born in New Delhi, India, in 1973, and came to the United States as an infant when his father pursued graduate school. He was raised in Peoria, Illinois, and educated at Princeton and Harvard Law.
He represents Illinois's 8th district in the northwest Chicago suburbs, which is about 28% foreign-born. He is a moderate by voting record. His DW-NOMINATE first-dimension score is −0.347, in the middle of the Democratic caucus, and his Heritage Action score is 6%.
He is a member of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, not the Progressive Caucus, and he did not cosponsor Medicare for All.
His signature immigration work is expansion. He has pushed to clear the employment-based green-card backlog for more than a million applicants and led a bipartisan effort to let H-1B visa holders renew their visas without leaving the country.
Not every immigrant in Congress sits on the far left, and Raja Krishnamoorthi is the clearest proof. By the standard measures he is a moderate. He belongs to the centrist bloc of his party, declined to sign its signature health-care bill, and built a reputation as a pragmatic dealmaker. The reason he belongs in this series is different. He is the most effective advocate in Congress for expanding the high-skilled immigration pipeline that the Nation of Settlers argues should be cut.
New Delhi to Peoria
Krishnamoorthi was born in New Delhi in 1973 and came to the United States as an infant, when his father moved the family so he could attend graduate school.[1] They settled in Peoria, Illinois, where his father became a professor. He went on to Princeton for engineering and Harvard for law.[1]
He worked as an engineer, a lawyer, and a state official before winning the 8th district's House seat in 2016. The district covers the northwest suburbs of Chicago and is about 28% foreign-born.[2] He now serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. He ran for the United States Senate in Illinois in 2026 and lost the Democratic primary.[1]
A moderate record
Krishnamoorthi's voting record does not fit a radical profile, and it would be inaccurate to claim otherwise. His DW-NOMINATE first-dimension score is −0.347, which places him in the moderate half of the Democratic caucus.[3] His Heritage Action score is 6%.[4] He is a member of the New Democrat Coalition, the centrist bloc, and not the Progressive Caucus.[5] He did not cosponsor the Medicare for All Act.[5] He has even voted for a resolution thanking ICE officers, a vote his primary opponents attacked from the left.[5]
The expansion agenda
Where Krishnamoorthi is not moderate is on the volume of immigration itself. His record is built on widening the legal pipeline.
He championed relief for the employment-based green-card backlog, pushing to clear a queue of more than a million applicants waiting for permanent residency through their jobs.[6] In 2025 he led a bipartisan effort, with a Republican colleague and a fellow immigrant member, urging the State Department to let H-1B visa holders renew their visas from inside the United States rather than abroad, expanding a pilot program that had covered tens of thousands of workers.[7] He has paired calls for border security with a citizenship pathway for immigrants brought to the country as children.
This is the heart of the disagreement. The H-1B program and the employment-based green-card system are exactly what the Nation of Settlers argues should be narrowed to genuinely exceptional cases. Krishnamoorthi has made a career of the opposite position, and he has made it persuasively, in bipartisan terms, from the political center. That makes him more consequential on this question than many louder members.
The center's expansion man
Krishnamoorthi votes from the moderate half of his caucus, sits with the New Democrats, and declined to sign Medicare for All. He is no radical, and the record forbids calling him one. His weight in the immigration debate comes from the opposite direction. He came to the United States as an infant on his father's graduate-school move, rose through Princeton and Harvard, and now leads the push to clear a green-card backlog of more than a million and to let H-1B holders renew without leaving the country.
That is the exact pipeline the Nation of Settlers wants reserved for genuinely exceptional cases. Krishnamoorthi argues for widening it, in bipartisan language, from the political center, where such arguments travel furthest. Illinois's 8th, about 28% foreign-born, sent to Washington the most credentialed advocate for the volume policy this series contests. A serious restriction agenda has to defeat his case, not the slogans of the left.
Sources
- Raja Krishnamoorthi, biography - born in New Delhi in 1973; came to the United States as an infant; raised in Peoria; Princeton and Harvard Law; ranking member on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party; 2026 Senate primary
- Data USA, Congressional District 8, Illinois (American Community Survey) - about 28% foreign-born
- DW-NOMINATE first-dimension scores, voteview.com - Raja Krishnamoorthi −0.347
- Heritage Action Scorecard, 118th Congress - Raja Krishnamoorthi 6%
- Capitol News Illinois, "Illinois Democratic U.S. Senate primary heats up over ICE" - New Democrat Coalition membership; vote thanking ICE officers; insistence that enforcement must continue
- Office of Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, "Krishnamoorthi welcomes robust high-skilled and family-based" green-card relief - employment-based green-card backlog relief
- American Bazaar, "Krishnamoorthi, Subramanyam seek H-1B visa renewal within US" - bipartisan effort to allow domestic H-1B renewals