CRS – Temporary Professional, Managerial, and Skilled Foreign Workers: Legislation in the 113th Congress. Ruth Ellen Wasem, Specialist in Immigration Policy. September 30, 2014

“The admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers raises a complex set of policy issues as the United States competes internationally for the most talented workers in the world, without adversely effecting U.S. workers and U.S. students entering the labor market. Legislative proposals that Congress has considered include streamlining procedures that govern the admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers; increasing the number of temporary professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers admitted each year; requiring employers of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to make efforts to recruit U.S. workers and offer wages and benefits that are comparable to similarly employed U.S. workers; extending labor protections and worker rights to professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to prevent abuse or exploitation of the worker; enabling professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to have “visa portability” so they can change jobs; and allowing professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to have “dual intent”; that is, to apply for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status while seeking or renewing temporary visas. Adding to the complexity of the debate is the variety of temporary visa categories that enable employment-based temporary admissions for highly skilled foreign workers. They perform work that ranges from skilled labor to management and professional positions to jobs requiring extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. These visa categories are commonly referred to by the letter and numeral that denote their subsection in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Congress has focused on two visa categories in particular: H-1B visas for professional specialty workers, and L visas for intra-company transferees. These two nonimmigrant visas epitomize the tensions between the global competition for talent and potential adverse effects on the U.S. workforce. The United States struggles to support the recruitment of highly skilled professionals on H-1B visas and L visas without displacing U.S. workers or putting downward pressures on the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers and U.S. students entering the labor market. Achieving this end through a process that both meets the expeditious needs of U.S. business and preserves employment opportunities for U.S. workers is a challenge, and there are critics of the current H-1B and L policies on each side of the issue. Congress is also weighing reforms of other professional and outstanding worker visas as well as treaty-specific visas. The 113th Congress has acted on legislation that would make extensive revisions to nonimmigrant categories for professional specialty workers (H-1B visas), intra-company transferees (L visas), and other skilled temporary workers. The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744), as passed by the Senate, and the Supplying Knowledgebased Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act (SKILLS Visa Act, H.R. 2131), as ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary, would substantially revise these visa categories. Both bills have provisions aimed at streamlining procedures, strengthening enforcement, and expanding admissions.”