S. 1083, the Securing Knowledge, Innovation, and Leadership Act of 2007, would increase the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000 and then by 20% in any following year in which the cap is met. As well, S. 1083 would increase the annual worldwide level of employment-based (EB) immigrants by 150,000 plus 340,000 spouses and minor children of EB immigrants who are exempt from the cap.
H.R. 1843, the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act, would exempt any alien who has been present in the United States as an H-2B nonimmigrant worker for any one of the previous three fiscal years and who is returning to work as an H-2B from counting against the 66,000-per-year cap on H-2B visas. This potentially triples the number of workers in a year and would make these provisions effective for five years.
H.R. 1758 would authorize DHS to issue up to 65,000 additional H-1B “high skill worker” visas per year (exempt from the extant 65,000-per-year cap) – fiscal years 2008 through 2012 – to aliens who meet H-1B admission requirements and who possess post-graduate degrees; would require an employer petitioning for such an H-1B nonimmigrant worker to make “qualified scholarship payments” to a U.S.
H.R. 1792, the Temporary Agricultural Labor Reform Act, would make reforms to the H-2A agricultural guest-worker program that would help protect U.S. agricultural workers from job displacement and wage depression currently caused by the H-2A temporary agricultural guest-worker program.
S. 1035, the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, would reduce much of the fraud associated with the H-1B and L-1 visa programs by, among other things, requiring employers to attest that they had tried to hire U.S. workers before importing a foreign worker and requiring H-1B and L-1 visa holders be paid prevailing wages.
S. 988, Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act of 2007, would have allowed an alien to return as an H-2B nonimmigrant worker without counting against the annual 66,000 cap if they had used an H-2B visa during one of the three previous fiscal years, effectively tripling the number of H-2B workers.
H.R. 1645, the Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy (STRIVE) Act, would grant amnesty to nearly all of the 12 million illegal aliens in the United States by one of several routes. It would also establish the H-2C guestworker program, through which 400,000 new workers (plus their spouses and minor children on an unlimited basis) may come to the United States annually. In addition, it would allow the annual cap on H-2C visas to be increased to as many as 600,000.
H.R. 1358 would create a new nonimmigrant visa category (i.e., the W visa) for aliens coming to the United States to work as professional nurses; would initially cap annual issuance of W visas to 50,000, but would provide that if that cap is reached in any year, the next year’s cap would be increased by 20 percent (no reduction if the cap is not reached – just a maintenance of the current cap); would exempt from the annual cap: (1) nonimmigrants working in geographic areas designated as “health professional shortage areas”; and (2) spouses and children of W nonimmigrants.
S.Con.Res. 11 would have required free trade agreements (FTA) to meet certain minimum standards, including that an FTA may not make any commitments as to the temporary entry of workers.
To amend section 218 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify the method of calculating the wages to be paid to H-2A workers.