Title: Protect and Grow American Jobs Act
Policy area: Immigration

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.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 170 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 170

 To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify the definition 
                    of ``exempt H-1B nonimmigrant''.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            January 3, 2017

  Mr. Issa (for himself, Mr. Peters, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Farenthold, Mr. 
 Labrador, Mr. Smith of Texas, and Mr. Polis) introduced the following 
       bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to modify the definition 
                    of ``exempt H-1B nonimmigrant''.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Protect and Grow American Jobs 
Act''.

SEC. 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.

SEC. 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.

SEC. 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)) is amended--
            (1) by striking clause (i) and inserting the following:
            ``(i) the term `exempt H-1B nonimmigrant' means an H-1B 
        nonimmigrant who receives wages (including cash bonuses) at an 
        annual rate equal to at least the greater of $100,000 or the 
        applicable adjusted amount under clause (iii);'';
            (2) in clause (ii), by striking the period at the end and 
        inserting ``; and''; 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.''.
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