The earlier measure was introduced in March 2007 by , but it died after being folded into a that was killed without coming up for a vote. The two lawmakers are aiming to introduce the new bill this week, according to a spokeswoman in Grassley's office.
The widespread layoffs being caused by the may help Grassley and Durbin this time around. Earlier this year, for instance, Grassley and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) succeeded at getting on financial services firms that receive federal bailout money into the massive economic stimulus bill signed into law by President Barack Obama.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which had to in both 2007 and 2008, will begin accepting visa applications for the federal fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
And although the weak economy is expected to reduce the number of applications, the prevailing view among immigration attorneys and supporters of efforts to raise the annual visa cap is that more than enough to meet the limit of 65,000 regular visas will again be filed quickly. High demand is expected as well for the 20,000 visas set aside for foreign workers with advanced degrees from U.S. universities.
Among those driving the demand will be foreign graduates who didn't win visas in last year's lottery but were able to under an extension approved by the Bush administration last April. Foreigners who graduated last spring and are still working on their student visas will also be eligible to apply for H-1B visas.
"This year, we are looking to clear the backlog," said Robert Hoffman, a vice president at Oracle Corp. and co-chair of Compete America, a Washington-based lobbying group that represents IT vendors, universities and other organization that support an increase in the visa cap.
While there is support for raising the H-1B cap in Congress, proponents have been stymied by the lack of progress on the broader immigration-reform issue. Backers of immigration reform in the House and Senate want any H-1B changes to be included as part of a wider overhaul and not treated separately.
Grassley and Durbin may be the two strongest in the Senate. Grassley, for instance, recently to give U.S. citizens and permanent residents job priority over H-1B holders as it lays off up to 5,000 workers.
Microsoft responded that it would lay off H-1B workers as part of the job cuts but that it would continue to hire visa holders as well. And in a post on its public policy blog Monday, the software vendor .
The bill that Grassley and Durbin proposed in 2007, then called the H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act, will be reintroduced with some changes, but its broad thrust is expected to remain. The earlier bill would have required employers to advertise job openings for 30 days before submitting H-1B applications for those positions. It also sought to prevent employers from hiring H-1B workers and then outsourcing them to other companies.
The return of the Grassley-Durbin bill will raise the H-1B issue again and, ironically, give proponents of a cap increase a potential opportunity to seek one. But the coupling of H-1B changes and broader immigration-reform efforts also gives supporters of the program an argument to use against piecemeal efforts to set new restrictions, Hoffman pointed out. "We just urge restraint," he said.
Although Obama has talked about the need for immigration reform, it's uncertain when or if he will push Congress to take any action. And since his election, the president hasn't said anything about H-1B matters, although he has appointed people to serve in key positions.
In addition, the new administration is discussing the visa issue with interested parties. Just last week, for instance, Dean Garfield, president and CEO of the Information Technology Industry Council, said he had met with administration officials to discuss a number of issues, including the H-1B program.