A potential amendment to theforthcoming budget bill may dramatically raise the employment-based visa quota,if Senate Democrats canrewrite it in a way to appease the Senate parliamentarian. Over the weekend, Senate Democrats attemptedto pass a positive immigration bill, but the Senate parliamentarian said thatit was inappropriate to include wide-ranging immigration language in a budgetbill. Senate Democrats are said to beworking on a back-up plan.
A budget bill is expected to passbefore October 1, 2021 to prevent a federal government shut down. Between now and then, the budget negotiationsare expected to consume Washington. Aspart of the process, House and Senate committees propose and suggest languageto place into the bill.
The HouseJudiciary Committee last week approved immigration language for the budgetbill, which included several positive immigration measures. Notably, the HJC language included a“recapture” of immigrant visas that were authorized but unused by DHS from1992-2021. A 2010report by DHS found that between 1992-2010 about a half million employmentbased visas were authorized by Congress but unused simply because ofbureaucratic delays and inefficiencies. Recapturingthese visas would dramatically clear up most retrogressed green cards and wouldbe an amazing piece of legislation for foreign nationals, US employers, and theUS economy as a whole.
The language included a few otherpositive items:
-A legalization path for a largenumber of undocumented people in the US
-A similar recaptured visas forfamily-based visas
-A liberalized Adjustment of Statusprocess for those with priority dates that are 2 years old
-An increased budget allocation forUSCIS