H.R. 5398, the Immigration for a Competitive America Act, would move some family-based green card categories to employment-based categories and lead to the quadrupling of H-1B guest-worker visas. The legislation would also mandate E-Verify and strengthen criminal penalties for employers, but would allow foreign workers to claim tax credits for their children.
H.R. 5224, the Criminal Alien Deportation Enforcement Act, would prohibit the issuance of visas to countries that refuse to repatriate deported aliens. Approximately 384,000 foreign nationals enter the country each year, across multiple visa categories, from recalcitrant countries.
H.R. 4798, the Reuniting Families Act, would recapture unused family-based and employment based visas from 1992-2015 to help clear out the backlog of more than 4 million foreign citizens. The bill would also make massive increases to chain migration categories and codify Pres. Obama's DAPA amnesty.
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to improve the H-1B visa program, to repeal the diversity visa lottery program, and for other purposes.
S. 2394, the American Jobs First Act of 2015, would implement major reforms of the H-1B program including adding a minimum wage provision ($110,000), and increasing the fee for employers to $10,000. More than 90% of H-1Bs issued in 2013 were for positions that paid less than $110,000 per year. The bill would also end the Visa Lottery.
H.R. 3647, the Fairness for Families Act of 2015, would exempt adult children of U.S. citizens who have certain disabilities from the annual caps.
H.R. 2278, the SAFE for America Act, would eliminate the visa lottery. This is a program that each year gives another 50,000 green cards to people without any regard to their humanitarian need or to what they might offer the country or to their having any family connections in the United States. It is a program that promotes massive illegal migration by people who think they may some day win the lottery and be allowed to stay in the United States. The bi-partisan U.S.
H.R. 604, the Nuclear Family Priority Act of 2015, would eliminate the latter three categories, create a special non-working visa for parents, and not provide an increase in any other category, thereby directly decreasing overall immigration by more than 111,800 per year (1.118 million a decade). This would indirectly reduce the numbers by even more over time as there would be fewer recent immigrants who are the ones most likely to bring people into the country as spouses or parents of U.S. citizens.
S. 153, the I-Squared Act of 2015, would increase H-1B visa numbers by more than 100,000 per year and allow certain other visa holders to renew their visas. This legislation would also allow family members of H-1B holders to remain in the country and receive work permits.
S. 98, the STEM Jobs Act of 2015, would cancel the visa lottery program and transfer the 55,000 yearly visas that would have been granted through the visa lottery into two new priority categories (doctorate and masters degree) under 203(b). For the first two fiscal years of the program, unused visas for which petitions or applications for labor certification have been filed will be added to the total visas for the next fiscal year. Following the first two years, remaining unused visas do not transfer to the next fiscal year.