When last we discussed Sen. Mike Lee’s high-tech green card giveaway bill known in the U.S. Senate as S.386, it had been passed in that chamber and was awaiting reconciliation with the House version, dubbed H.R.1044.
Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies tells us on January 7 that the differences between the two made it impossible for the 116th Congress to agree on a common bill before its adjournment. So, once again the “Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020” retreated to the close-but-not-close-enough status it has enjoyed for nearly two years since Lee introduced it in February 2019.
But S.386/H.S.1044 is not dead, and the new Congress, now featuring a Democrat-leaning Senate, will surely revive it in its upcoming session.
As a summary, Vaughan lists the main features of S.386:
- Beginning in 2022, 70 percent of both the EB-2 and EB-3 visa categories will be awarded to citizens of India, who currently receive about 15 to 25 percent. Within a few years, that percentage is subject grow to perhaps 85 percent.
- For seven years, at least 4,400 green cards in the EB-3 category will be set aside for nurses and physical therapists, most of whom are Filipinos.
- While the number of green cards issued to H-1B recipients (mostly Indian) will be capped, this will open the door to other Indian guest workers in other categories, such as L (foreign workers assigned to companies’ American headquarters) and F (foreign students).
- Currently temporary guest workers often wait years for green cards allowing them to seek other jobs in the United States. S.386 has an “early filing” provision that would shorten the wait to no more than two years. Vaughan considers this provision the “most impactful.”
To secure Senate approval, Lee had to agree to a number of changes to his original bill, some of them good. These, according to Vaughan, include:
- Requiring businesses to advertise jobs before seeking to sponsor H-1B workers
- Banning “H-1Bs only” job advertisements
- Boosting recruitment of U.S. workers by H-1B employers
- Conducting more verification of wages paid to foreign workers
- Capping H-1B and L visa workers at 50 percent of total employment in larger companies
- Adding fees for employers seeking H-1Bs
- Prohibiting use of the short-term business visa for employment in the U.S.
- Expanding the authority of the Labor Department to investigate and audit employers
- Increasing the consequences for employers who skirt the rules
Even with these modifications, which have not been agreed to by both houses, this bill is a massive green card giveaway, specifically designed for the Silicon Valley constituency of the upcoming Senatorial tiebreaker and new VP, Kamala Devi Harris.
For more, see CIS.org.