Healthcare Staffing Report: Feb. 5, 2015

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Proposed US bill would raise H-1B visa cap

US senators introduced a bill to reform immigration laws for high-skilled workers, including increasing the H-1B visa cap to 115,000 from 65,000.

Dubbed the Immigration Innovation, or “I-Squared” Act of 2015, the bill focuses on 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.

US Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced the bill.

“This bill is a common-sense approach to ensuring that those who have come here to be educated in high-tech fields have the ability to stay here with their families and contribute to the economy and our society,” Hatch said. “I’m calling on everyone — from the president and both sides of the aisle in Congress to the tech and business industries — to get behind this bill and use it as a launching for more progress on immigration reform. We have to find ways to make progress and solve some of the real problems facing our nation. The I-Squared Act is one of those ways and I want to work with everyone to get it done.”

Immigration Innovation (“I-Squared”) Act of 2015:

Employment-Based Nonimmigrant H-1B Visas

  • Increase the H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000.
  • Allow the cap to go up (but not above 195,000) within any fiscal year where early filings exceed cap and require the cap to go down in a following fiscal year (but not below 115,000) if usage at the end of any fiscal year is below that particular year’s cap.
  • Uncap the existing US advanced degree exemption (currently limited to 20,000 per year).
  • Authorize employment for dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders.
  • Increase worker mobility by establishing a grace period during which foreign workers can change jobs and not be out of status and restoring visa revalidation for E, H, L, O and P nonimmigrant visa categories.

Student Visas

  • Allow dual intent for foreign students at U.S. colleges and universities to provide the certainty they need to ensure their future in the United States

Green Cards

  • Enable the recapture of green card numbers that were approved by Congress in previous years but were not used, and continue this policy going forward through the roll-over of unused green cards in future fiscal years to the following fiscal year
  • Exempt certain categories of persons from the employment-based green card cap:
    • Dependents of employment-based immigrant visa recipients
    • US STEM advance degree holders
    • Persons with extraordinary ability
    • Outstanding professors and researchers
    • Eliminate annual per-country limits for employment based visa petitioners and adjust per-country caps for family-based immigrant visas

US STEM Education & Worker Retraining Initiative

  • Reform fees on H-1B visas and employment-based green cards; use money from these fees to fund a grant program to promote STEM education and worker retraining to be administered by the states.