The Senate Judiciary Committee did mark up this bill. THis means that it has been approved and has now been sent to the Budget Committee for inclusion in the Budget bill. It will be approved hopefully this weekend.
Afterwards, a joint House-Senate committee will try to agree on the whole budget bill. This is where things may change; however there are good chances the conference will let it stand as this generates revenue and has nothing to do with illegal workers. After the conference committee approves it, it will essentially be sent to the President to be signed. At this moment, it will become law.
Please find the article below
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CQ TODAY – BUDGET: IMMIGRATION
Oct. 20, 2005 – 2:52 p.m.
Senate Judiciary Imposes Visa Fees, Exceeds Target for Budget Savings
By Michael Sandler, CQ Staff
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday debated two approaches to meeting its required budgetary savings target through visa fees, then agreed to a compromise that incorporates parts of both proposals.
The debate quickly turned into a horse-trading session as Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., led the way in meshing the original proposal by Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., with a substitute offered by Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.
The final version would:
• Raise the minimum fee for non-immigrant L-1 visas by $750, to a total of $1,440. Such visas allow businesses to temporarily transfer senior executives, managers and certain other specialized employees to th
e United States. The provision would generate an estimated $68 million a year over five years.
• Recapture hundreds of thousands of unused H-1B visas from previous years and reissue up to 30,000 a year with an added $500 fee. Those visas are reserved for highly skilled workers, often in engineering, computer technology and similar fields. The provision would generate an estimated $15 million a year over five years.
• Recapture and reissue unused immigrant work visas, or green cards, and increase the fee by $500. The provision would generate an estimated $30 million a year over five years.
Early staff assessments show the compromise would provide up to $113 million in fiscal 2006 and $565 million over five years. That would comfortably exceed the committee’s $300 million five-year savings target set by the fiscal 2006 budget resolution (H Con Res 95).
Feinstein’s compromise amendment was adopted by a vote of 10-5. The draft bill was then approved, 14-2. Democrats Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin voted against it.
An amendment offered by Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, that would have raised all immigration fees by 5 percent and generated $375 million over the five-year period was defeated, 6-11.
Senators directed the staff to polish the details of the new draft for submission to the Senate Budget Committee, which will include the measure in a broad reconciliation bill slated for markup next week.
Specter’s original proposal would have reclaimed all unused H-1B visas and reissued them with a new fee, while Sessions would have tracked a bill (HR 3648) approved by the House Judiciary Committee on Sept. 29 that would have increased fees for L-1 visas by $1,500.
Specter’s plan would have allowed the federal government to go back to October 1991 to recapture hundreds of thousands of unused H-1B visas, then reissue up to 60,000 of those visas a year with an additional $500 fee per visa. That would have generated $30 million a year.
Another $30 million a year would have been raised by reclaiming and reissuing unused green cards for professional workers going back to 2001, with an additional $500 fee per visa.
Feinstein’s compromise cut in half, to 30,000, the number of H-1B visas to be reissued each year. That would generate $15 million annually. The green card portion of Specter’s plan remained untouched in the final draft, a Specter aide said.
Feinstein also cut the proposed fee increase for L-1 visas to $750, which would generate an estimated $68 million a year, according to staff estimates. Session’s bid to raise fees on the L-1 visas by $1,500 failed, 6-11. Feinstein supported the bigger increase.
Feinstein said she had a problem with issuing thousands of new H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, many of them in the computer technology sector. She said that threatens American jobs, especially in tech-heavy California.
“I think we do our own people a disservice,” Feinstein said. “There’s been no hearing on this. No investigation. This is just a very controversial thing.”
Sessions agreed. “It’s not budget reconciliation. It’s a policy change,” he said. “As Sen. Feinstein said, what evidence is there that there is a crisis?”
Specter said that in many cases, the nation needs these workers. John Cornyn, R-Texas, supported him, saying that the H-1B visas available now are depleted in the first two months of the year.
“I would also say if we were training enough engineers, we wouldn’t need this,” Cornyn said.
Business organizations such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Information Technology Industry Council oppose the increased L-1 visa fee. The groups said it could discourage investment in the United States and complained that the money raised would not go toward speeding issuance of the visas. Employers currently can obtain accelerated processing of the visas by paying an additional $1,000 per worker.
Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., suggested the committee approve Specter’s proposal and let the conferees work out a compromise later on. But Feinstein decided to act immediately, offering her amendment on the fly and winning its adoption.
Source: CQ Today
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