The Significant Reforms to Employment-Based Immigration in the Senate Immigration Bill

 The first major reform to the employment-based immigration system (which allows qualifying foreign workers to obtain green cards) is the exemption from annual caps for certain types of working immigrants, including: “derivative beneficiaries of employment-based immigrants; aliens of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics; outstanding professors and researchers; multinational executives and managers; doctoral degree holders in STEM field; and physicians who have completed the foreign residency requirements or have received a waiver.” 

This classification closely mirrors the current first employment-based category or preference. It also reflects an emphasis on in-demand jobs in the United States, such as STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields and healthcare. http://www.greencardapply.com/news/news13/news13_0506.htm

The bill then reorganizes the current allocation of employment-based visas to favor certain professional and skilled workers with desired talents, degrees, and experience in specified occupations. It also “creates startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs who seek to emigrate to the United States to startup their own companies.”

One intriguing proposal is the “Merit Based Visa”, a program that would be instituted in the fifth year after enactment of the bill. This is completely new, meaning it does not alter existing programs like many of the other reforms. Here is how it would work:

Points would be awarded to individuals based on education, employment, length of residence in the United States, and other considerations.

Those with the most points would earn the merit based visas.

Initial eligibility for accessing the merit based pathway would turn on talent, participation in an existing worker program, and those with family in the U.S.

A minimum of 120,000 visas for this program would be available each year and would increase by 5 percent per year if demand exceeds supply in any year where unemployment is under 8.5 percent. Eventually, the maximum would be capped at 250,000.

The Gang of Eight’s reform bill is, in part, a response to America’s business leaders who have consistently demanded an overhaul of the employment-based immigration system.

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