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Tech companies need to stand together and support comprehensive immigration reform, and not just changes to the H-1B program for specialist workers, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin wrote in a letter to prominent technology executives on Tuesday.

The letter addressed to the CEOs of Microsoft, Facebook, Intel and Google among other companies urged them not to support stand-alone legislation raising the cap on the H-1B visa. A total of 85,000 such visas will be distributed this year, and applications opened April 1.

It is important to note that technology companies are not the only ones who are being hurt by our broken immigration system, Durbin wrote in the letter. American workers continue to suffer with immigration laws that allow unscrupulous employers to game the system and import cheap foreign labor.

The issue of the H-1B visas, which tech companies say help attract talent from around the world, has gained new traction with the formation of tech-backed groups like Mark Zuckerbergs FWD.us, which supports comprehensive immigration reform. In a Washington Post op-ed published in 2013, Zuckerberg specifically mentioned H-1Bs, writing that each visa-holder helps create two to three new American jobs. The Facebook founder went on to voice support for comprehensive immigration reform, including a path to citizenship, among other measures.

"FWD.us remains deeply committed to fixing our badly broken immigration system by helping pass a comprehensive legislative solution that will boost economic growth, create American jobs, and do right by American families -- and we know that the time is now for House Republicans to take action," FWD.us communications director Kate Hansen said in an email on Wednesday.

While his letter was addressed to the CEOs of household-name technology companies, Durbin also directed his message Tuesday to Republicans in Congress, writing that an over-emphasis on the issue of H-1Bs destroys the delicate political balance achieved in our bipartisan bill and calls into question the good faith of those who would sacrifice millions of lives for H-1B relief.

The use of H-1B visas by tech firms has been criticized by experts and reform advocates as a way for the companies to bring in cheap labor at the expense of American jobs. The tech companies counter that they fill a critical gap of American talent in science, technology, engineering and mathematics - an assertion that some researchers also deny.

--- Matthew DeLuca

First published April 2 2014, 1:28 PM

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PHOENIX Less than a week after President Barack Obama discussed immigration reform in a meeting with Pope Francis, a delegation of Roman Catholic leaders is visiting the U.S-Mexico border Tuesday to raise awareness about the plight of immigrants and to pray for policy changes.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, one of Francis' key advisers and the leader of the Boston Archdiocese, will be joined by members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for an early morning walk in the desert along the border, followed by a Mass at the fence separating the two countries in southern Arizona.

"The purpose of this journey here to Arizona is to raise a consciousness about the need for our president and Congress to pass immigration policy and reform to address a broken system," said Bishop Gerald Kicanas of the Tucson Diocese.

"We're also here to pray for those who have lost their lives along the border."

Dozens of immigrants die each year in the brutal desert terrain while trying to cross illegally into the United States along the roughly 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico. The Catholic leaders note that immigrants are simply trying to find better lives and jobs in America and that thousands of them have died crossing the Southwest desert in recent decades.

"What we fail to remember in this debate is the human aspect of immigration that immigration is primarily about human beings, not economic or social issues," said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seattle and chairman of the conference's Committee on Migration.

TThose who have died, and those deported each day, have the same value and innate God-given dignity as all persons, yet we ignore their suffering and their deaths."

The push for immigration reform in Congress has been stalled for months, with Democrats and Republicans unable to reach an agreement over the divisive issue.

House Democrats last week tried to force a vote on a comprehensive immigration bill, an effort that is likely to fail given Republican reluctance to address the topic in an election year while all signs point to major gains for the GOP in the November midterms.

The Senate passed a comprehensive bill last June, but the measure stalled in the GOP-controlled House where Republicans have argued for a piecemeal approach to reforming the system.

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Bishops seek immigration reform during Arizona-Mexico border trip