US Senate introduces Bill for doubling H1B visa cap

It proposes 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.

The legislation also aims at reforming the fees on H-1B and Green Cards so those fees can be used to promote American worker retraining and education.

Furthermore, it authorises employment for dependent spouses of H-1B visa holders, thus meeting a long pending demand.

It also proposes to increase portability of high skilled foreign workers by removing impediments and costs of changing employers, establishing a clear transition period for foreign workers as they change jobs, and restoring visa revalidation for E, H, L, O, and P non-immigrant visa categories.

The legislation, if passed by the Congress and signed into law by the US President, will enable the recapture of Green Card numbers that were approved by Congress in previous years but were not used.

It will exempt certain categories of persons from the employment-based Green Card cap, including dependents of employment-based immigrant visa recipients, US STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) advance degree holders, persons with extraordinary ability and outstanding professors and researchers.

The legislation also provides for the roll-over of unused employment-based immigrant visa numbers to the following fiscal year so that future visas are not lost due to bureaucratic delays, and eliminate annual per-country limits for employment based visa petitioners and adjust per-country caps for family-based immigrant visas.

The legislation calls for reforming fees on H-1B visas and employment-based Green Cards and use money from

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