Protect and Grow American Jobs Act

To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify the definition of exempt H–1B nonimmigrant 1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Protect and Grow American Jobs Act 2. Findings The Congress makes the following findings: (1) The H–1B visa program allows businesses temporarily to hire highly skilled foreign workers with specialized knowledge, where a qualified worker in the United States cannot be found. (2) In 1990, the Congress created the H–1B visa program to help ensure that access to qualified highly skilled professionals was not an obstacle to economic growth and job creation in the United States. (3) The H–1B visa program was never intended to be used as a catalyst for laying off workers in the United States and replacing them with H–1B workers. (4) The unintended consequences of the H–1B visa program enabled a small number of companies to hire large numbers of H–1B workers relative to their United States worker populations. (5) In 1998, Congress passed new enforcement provisions to the H–1B program in order to prevent companies from displacing United States workers with lower-cost foreign professionals. (6) The 1998 revisions defined a new class of H–1B-dependent employers and established additional conditions on their business and hiring practices unless they paid sufficiently high wages. (7) The 1998 revisions, however, did not index wage requirements to keep pace with wage growth, and, as a result, the strength of provisions designed to protect workers and employers committed to hiring United States workers was reduced significantly. 3. Purpose The purpose of this Act is to close a loophole in the H–1B visa program by requiring H–1B-dependent employers once again to pay sufficiently high wages to ensure the protection of the workforce in the United States and to remove other impediments to proper H–1B visa enforcement. 4. Exempt H–1B nonimmigrant defined Section 212(n)(3)(B) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ( 8 U.S.C. 1182(n)(3)(B) (1) by striking clause (i) and inserting the following: (i) the term exempt H–1B nonimmigrant ; (2) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and inserting ; and (3) by adding at the end the following: (iii) the amount described in clause (i) (as of the last increase to such amount) shall be increased, effective for the third fiscal year that begins after the date of the enactment of this clause and for every third fiscal year thereafter, by the percentage (if any) by which the Consumer Price Index for the month of June preceding the date on which such increase takes effect exceeds the Consumer Price Index for the same month of the third preceding calendar year. .

Summary: Protect and Grow American Jobs Act This bill amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to revise the definition of "exempt H-1B nonimmigrant" to eliminate the masters or higher degree requirement and raise the annual salary threshold requirement from $60,000 to $100,000. (An exempt H-1B nonimmigrant is a nonimmigrant H-1B [specialty occupation] worker meeting certain criteria whom an H-1B dependent employer may hire without having to satisfy certain otherwise applicable H-1B hiring criteria. An H-1B dependent employer is generally one whose H-1B workers comprise 15% or more of the employer's total workforce, with different thresholds applying to smaller employers.) The bill requires an inflation adjustment to the salary threshold every third fiscal year.