Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020
Latest action. Message on Senate action sent to the House.
Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2020
This bill modifies requirements related to employment-based visas, changes annual limits on certain visas, and contains other related provisions.
The bill increases the per-country cap on family-based immigrant visas from 7% of the total number of such visas available that year to 15%, eliminates the 7% cap for employment-based immigrant visas, and limits the percentage of employment-based visas which may go to an alien on an H-1B (specialty profession) or H-4 (family member of H-1B visa holder) nonimmigrant visa.
The bill establishes various transition rules for employment-based visas such as (1) reserving a percentage of EB-2 (workers with advanced degrees or exceptional ability) and EB-3 (skilled and other workers) visas for individuals not from the two countries with the largest number of recipients of such visas, (2) reserving a percentage of visas for certain immigrants with approved backlogged petitions, and (3) allotting a number of visas for eligible professional nurses and physical therapists.
The bill removes an offset that reduced the number of visas for individuals from China and also bars an alien affiliated with China's military forces from obtaining permanent legal resident status.
The bill also imposes additional requirements on an employer seeking an H-1B visa, such as (1) requiring an employer to provide certain information in a new application for such a visa, such as the qualifications and application process for the position; (2) prohibiting an employer from advertising that the open position is only available to an H-1B applicant or that an H-1B applicant is preferred; and (3) prohibiting an employer of a certain size from having more than half of its employees as H-1B or other nonimmigrant visa workers.
The Department of Labor shall create a publicly-available website where an employer seeking an H-1B visa shall post certain information about the open position to be filled by the H-1B worker.
The bill also expands Labor's authority to review and investigate H-1B applications for fraud or misrepresentations of material fact, whereas currently Labor is generally only authorized by statute to review applications for completeness and obvious inaccuracies. The bill also increases civil monetary fines for certain visa-related violations.
The summary continues for 1 more paragraph. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Passed Senate" stage on December 2, 2020. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
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The record's latest action, on December 3, 2020: Message on Senate action sent to the House.
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In the 116th Congress (2019-20), 344 of the 14,345 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.4 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one has no outstanding steps listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
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Who is behind it?
ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA) introduced it on February 7, 2019, and 311 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 7, 2019, 2772 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 2107 days ago, on December 3, 2020.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 116th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2021 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
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Vote history
- HouseMessage on Senate action sent to the House.
- SenateNot stated in the latest action
- PresidentNot stated in the latest action