U.S. Senators, Chuck Grassley, Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee, and Dick Durbin, Assistant Democratic Leader in co-sponsorship with Senators Bill Nelson, Richard Blumenthal, and Sherrod Brown introduced a bipartisan legislation known as "The H-1 and L-I Reform Act, 2015" in the Senate seeking reform of H-1B visa programme and modification of wage requirements.
In addition to retaining most restrictions proposed in the previous legislation of 2013, this Bill proposes to introduce a new system for allocating skilled-worker visas, tougher eligibility standards, new minimum wage standards and other employer obligations, and limiting the ability of employers to place H-1B and L-1 employees at third-party worksites or otherwise contract for their services.
Based on Senator Durbin's statement the "The H-1 and L-I Reform Act, 2015" will prohibit the replacement of American workers by H-1B or L-1 visa holders and end the abuse of displacing qualified American workers and facilitating outsourcing of American jobs and will protect American workers from exploitation. This reform is being considered as a critical component of fixing the broken immigration system wherein foreign outsourcing companies have used loopholes in the laws to displace qualified American workers and facilitate the outsourcing of American jobs.
This legislation aims to limit larger IT companies from applying for H-1B visas if more than 50% of their workers are already on H-1 or L-1 visas. Also, preference will be given to U.S. graduates and advanced degree holders who are paid higher wages. Further, this Bill will also give enhanced authority to the Department of Labor to penalize fraudulent or abusive conduct as well as require the agency to keep detailed statistics on wages and education levels of visa holders and also have the authority to investigate and audit the employer compliance. In addition, the bill also includes establishing the wage floor for the L-1 workers, permitting the authority to the Homeland Security Department for investigating, auditing and enforcing the compliance with the L-1 program prerequisites.
This legislation will be considerably more restrictive than any previous legislation introduced by Senators Durbin and Grassley in the last Congress which did not make it through.
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