Hatch, Klobuchar, Rubio, Coons Introduce High-Skilled Immigration Bill

Bipartisan Legislation Reforms Employment-Based H-1B and Student Visas, Increases Access to Employment-Based Green Cards, and Promotes STEM Education

U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) today introduced legislation, the Immigration Innovation (I2) Act of 2013, to bring long-overdue reforms to the nation’s immigration laws for high-skilled workers. The bill focuses on areas vital to ensuring the United States can maintain its competitiveness in the global economy: the quantity of employment-based nonimmigrant visas (H-1B visas), allowing for their growth depending on the demands of the economy while making reforms to protect workers; increased access to green cards for high-skilled workers by expanding the exemptions and eliminating the annual per country limits for employment based green cards; and reforming the fees on H-1B and green cards so those fees can be used to promote American worker retraining and education.

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STEM Green Cards Part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform Proposal

The “gang of 8”, Senators Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake has released its Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform on January28, 2013.

In the section of the proposal entitled “Improving our Legal Immigration System and Attracting the World’s Best and Brightest” the proposal philosophically embraces efficient green cards for STEM graduates in the following language:  

"The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world’s best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world’s future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.”

Senator Grassley Lifts Hold on H.R. 3012 with H-1B Enforcement agreement

The ACIP reports that "Senator Grassley (R-IA) announced he had lifted his hold on the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act, H.R. 3012, due to a recent agreement reached with Senator Schumer (D-NY) that would give the Department of Labor (DOL) expanded authority to investigate and audit an employer's H-1B labor condition application (LCA) compliance.  While the base bill passed overwhelmingly in the House last fall, it still faces challenges in the Senate where two other potential holds from Senators could stop it from moving forward.  Even if the bill passes in the Senate, it would then have to be reconsidered and passed in the House with the new Grassley-Schumer language.". 

Without raising the total number of employment based green cards, the bill eliminates the country limits after a three year gradual phase in, benefiting the STEM graduates from India and China with long current waits for open priority dates.