The idea is to identify companies that are known to be compliant with all immigration laws and cut out two of the three steps involved in obtaining H-1B visas for each prospective employee, says Rebecca Peters, director and counsel for legislative affairs for ACIP. Trusted Employer would allow limited resources to be diverted to other priorities around visa enforcement and fraud prevention and detection.

"We would be streamlining the adjudication of petitions and applications of employers," she explains. A Trusted Employer would, for instance, not need to prove it was a valid business each time it requested a visa. This program would save money and effort that the immigration agency can use in other ways, such as to attend to the backlog of fraud investigations and green card requests.

Sounds good, until you consider that the issue of outright fraud isn't what has pro-labor groups all hot and bothered (although fraud is a hot button for members of Congress). Immigration officials say H-1B visa fraud has dropped since 2008. For the past two years, the agency has been using a new fraud detection method and has conducted 14,433 H-1B surprise site inspections to verify the legitimacy of visa workers.

"As compared to the nearly 21 percent fraud and noncompliance rate in 2008, the 14 percent 'not verified' rate suggests a reduced level of fraud in the H-1B program," testified Donald Neufeld, associate director, Service Center Operations Directorate, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Others say that an employer can be following the law and still be abusing its intent.