Pending H-1B Relief Bills

Following the H-1B lottery, where roughly half of the applications were rejected in the lottery, we are providing an overview of the pending H-1B relief bills in Congress.

The main piece of legislation in connection with H-1B relief is the SKIL Bill (HR 1930, S 1083).   The bill would raise the H-1B cap to 115,000 and provide for market-based increase if the cap has been reached during the previous years.  The bill would also exempt from the cap professionals with U.S. master’s or higher degrees AND some medical specialty certificate awardees.  Finally, the SKIL Bill contemplates including into the 20,000 advanced degree cap holders of advanced degree from non-U.S. educational institutions.

The STRIVE Act of 2007 (HR 1645) has provisions similar to the SKIL Bill.

HR 5630, introduced by  Rep. Giffords (AZ) seeks to increase the cap to 130,000 and, similarly to the SKIL Bill, includes a market-based escalation provision.

Finally, HR 5642, introduced by Rep. Smith (TX) seeks to increase the cap for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 to 195,000.