Legislation aimed at revising the law governing the admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to the United States received attention in both chambers of the 113 th Congress. This workforce is seen by many as a catalyst of U.S. global economic competitiveness and is likewise considered a key element of the legislative options aimed at stimulating economic growth. The challenge central to the policy debate is facilitating the migration of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers without adversely affecting U.S. workers and U.S. students entering the labor market. This report provides legislative analyses of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act ( S. 744 ), as passed by the Senate, and the Supplying Knowledge-based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act (SKILLS Visa Act, H.R. 2131 ), as ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary. Both bills would substantially revise the law governing the admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to the United States. The companion report, CRS Report R43735, Temporary Professional, Managerial, and Skilled Foreign Workers: Policy and Trends , by [author name scrubbed] , as its name suggests, analyzes the current policy and statistical trends. Currently, there are 24 major nonimmigrant (i.e., aliens who the United States admits on a temporary basis) visa categories, and over 70 specific types of nonimmigrant visas issued. These visa categories are commonly referred to by the letter and numeral that denote their subsection in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Several visa categories are designated for employment-based temporary admission. A variety of temporary visas—by their intrinsic nature—allow foreign nationals to be employed in the United States. Over the past two decades, the number of visas issued for temporary employment-based admission has more than doubled from just over 400,000 in FY1994 to over 1 million in FY2013. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration Statistics estimated that there were approximately 1.1 million temporary workers and long-term exchange residents living in the United States in January 2012. While the data include some unskilled and low-skilled workers as well as accompanying family members, the visas for managerial, skilled, and professional workers dominate the trends. The admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers raises a series of policy options as the United States competes internationally for the most talented workers in the world without putting downward pressures on the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers and U.S. students entering the labor market. Adding to the complexity of the debate is the variety of temporary visa categories that enable employment-based temporary admissions for highly skilled foreign workers. They perform work that ranges from skilled labor to management and professional positions as well as jobs requiring extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics. Congress has considered several overarching legislative options to reform the system of admitting highly skilled foreign workers, which include the following: streamlining procedures that govern the admission of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers so that the rules are less time consuming and burdensome for employers; increasing the number of temporary professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers admitted each year; requiring employers of professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to meet labor markets tests, such as making efforts to recruit U.S. workers and offering wages and benefits that are comparable to similarly employed U.S. workers; extending labor protections and worker rights to professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to prevent abuse or exploitation of the worker; enabling professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to have "visa portability" so they can change jobs; and permitting professional, managerial, and skilled foreign workers to have "dual intent"; that is, to apply for lawful permanent resident (LPR) status while seeking or renewing temporary visas. In addition to these issues that cross-cut the various temporary employment-based visas, Congress has focused in particular on two visa categories: H-1B visas for professional specialty workers, and L visas for intra-company transferees. These two nonimmigrant visas epitomize the tensions between the global competition for talent and potential adverse effects on the U.S. workforce. The 113 th Congress has considered legislation that would make extensive revisions to nonimmigrant categories for professional specialty workers (H-1B visas), intra-company transferees (L visas), and other skilled temporary workers; and two bills have received action. They are the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act ( S. 744 ) as passed by the Senate, and the Supplying Knowledge-based Immigrants and Lifting Levels of STEM Visas Act (SKILLS Visa Act; H.R. 2131 ), as ordered reported by the House Committee on the Judiciary. Both bills would substantially revise these visa categories, with provisions largely aimed at streamlining procedures, strengthening enforcement, and expanding admissions. The major nonimmigrant category for temporary professional workers is the H-1B visa. To obtain an H-1B visa, the foreign national must work in a "specialty occupation." Current law generally limits annual H-1B admissions to 65,000, but most H-1B workers are exempted from the limits because they are returning workers or they work for universities and nonprofit research facilities that are exempt from the cap. In FY2012, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) approved 257,538 H-1B professional specialty worker petitions, an increase from 192,990 in FY2010 (during the recession). In recent years, applications for new H-1B workers have routinely exceeded the numerical limits—in some years exceeding limits during the first week or even on the first day that applications are received. S. 744 would seek to address perceived H-1B shortages by replacing the 65,000 per year cap on new H-1B admissions with a flexible cap that would range from a floor of 115,000 to a ceiling of 180,000 annually, with a "market-based" mechanism to increase or decrease the cap based on demand during the previous year (i.e., whether and how quickly the previous year's limit was reached). Up to 25,000 STEM advanced degree graduates would be exempted from the cap. Spouses of H-1B workers would be permitted to work, thereby eliminating a potential barrier to H-1B recruitment. The bill would ease the renewal of H-1B by limiting the review of such renewals to material errors, substantive changes, and newly discovered information. In addition, H-1B workers would have a 60-day grace period after loss of a job to seek additional employment without losing their visa status. S. 744 would also streamline the adjustment of status for certain aliens with long-standing employment-based petitions for such adjustment, a provision aimed at addressing the backlog of H-1B workers with pending legal permanent resident (LPR) petitions. H.R. 2131 would increase the annual cap on H-1B workers from 65,000 to 155,000 and replace the current higher education degree exemption of 20,000 with an exemption for up to 40,000 foreign nationals who have STEM master's or doctorate degrees. It would also permit the spouses of H-1B workers to seek employment. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would be required to develop a streamlined pre-certification process for employers who file multiple petitions. In addition to these concerns about whether employers have adequate access to H-1B workers, some Members of Congress have raised questions about whether H-1B workers may have an adverse effect on U.S. workers and whether H-1B workers are being treated legally under the terms of their employment. Most notable are concerns about H-1B workers displacing U.S. workers in certain occupations and the use of H-1B workers by companies that are out-sourcing jobs overseas. Some also express the viewpoint that the availability of H-1B workers may possibly place downward pressure on certain skilled U.S. workers' wages and/or discourage U.S. workers from entering STEM fields in which H-1B workers are well represented. Current law requires prospective employers of H-1B workers to submit a labor attestation to the Secretary of Labor to bring in foreign workers. The H-1B labor attestation, a three-page application form, is a statement of intent rather than a documentation of actions taken. In the labor attestation for an H-1B worker, the employer must attest that the firm will pay the nonimmigrant the greater of the actual wages paid to other employees in the same job or the prevailing wages for that occupation; the firm will provide working conditions for the nonimmigrant that do not cause the working conditions of the other employees to be adversely affected; and there is no applicable strike or lockout. The firm must provide a copy of the labor attestation to representatives of the bargaining unit or—if there is no bargaining representative—must post the labor attestation in conspicuous locations at the work site. S. 744 would seek to protect U.S. workers by modifying H-1B application requirements for investigating H-1B complaints. The bill would amend the employer H-1B application process to revise wage determination requirements based on Department of Labor (DOL) surveys, and would require employers to advertise for U.S. workers on a DOL website. Section 4213 would impose additional restrictions on how employers advertise for H-1B positions, and would impose limits on the total number of H-1B and L workers certain employers can hire.