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The following is excerpt from an Action Alert on NumbersUSA.com
Background on SKIL Act
Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) introduced the SKIL Act (H.R. 5744) in the House. The Senate version is S. 2691. The SKIL Act would:
- Increase the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000 in the first fiscal year after enactment.
- Further increase the cap by 20 percent in any fiscal year following a year in which employers used all available visas.
- Exempts from the annual cap on H-1B visas aliens: who work at a nonprofit organization; who hold a graduate degree from an institution of higher education in a foreign country (up to 20,000 exempted per year); who have earned an advanced degree from a U.S. institution of higher education; or who have been awarded medical specialty certification based on post-doctoral training and experience in the United States.
- Increases by 150,000 the annual worldwide level of employment-based (EB) immigrants and
- Exempts the spouses and minor children of EB immigrants, along with certain other aliens, from that cap.
- Facilitates a path to permanent residency and employment for L-1 visa holders by requiring DHS to extend the authorized stay of an L-1 nonimmigrant who has an application for LPR status pending.
- Expands eligibility for F student visas to include any student qualified to pursue a full course of study in mathematics, engineering, technology, or the sciences leading to a bachelor’s or graduate degree.
The result of the SKIL Act would be to further depress the wages of Americans working in high-tech and scientific fields and to cause additional job displacement for those workers.
More H-1B Background
The annual cap on H-1B visas returned to 65,000 on October 1, 2003, after being increased to as high as 195,000 the year before.
As a result of heavy lobbying by high-tech companies and cheap labor lobbyists, in the fall of 2004, Congress created another H-1B visa expansion with an annual cap of 20,000 to accommodate foreign nationals attaining graduate degrees from U.S. universities.
These are an extra 20,000 H-1B visas to be granted above the 65,000 cap for workers with U.S.-earned graduate degrees.
These H-1B visas are still available for workers that are not subjected to the annual cap, such as those who would be employed at institutions of higher education, nonprofit research organizations, or governmental research organizations.
Thanks to Mark Hudson for brining this article to our attention
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