Senate Passes Bill Fighting Immigration Discrimination and Protecting American Workers

Press Release

On Wednesday, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) secured passage by unanimous consent of an amended version of HR 1044, a bill designed to fight discrimination in our nation's immigration system while also increasing protections for American workers.

"Few ideas are more central to who we are as Americans than the notion that people should be judged based on their own merits as individuals and not on their race or nationality," Sen. Lee said. "This legislation lives up to our founding principles by ending nationality discrimination in our nation's employment-based green-card system. It also contains much-needed reforms to our H-1B visa system. American families should always be our top priority and this bill contains strong new protections for American workers."

The amended of version of HR 1044 passed by the Senate on Wednesday would:

End country of origin discrimination by eliminating annual country-of-origin caps on green-card visas without increasing the total number of green cards issued each year.
Forbid all employers with workforces consisting of more than 50% temporary visa workers from sponsoring any new temporary visa workers.
Close the B-1 temporary business visitor visa loophole used by many employers to avoid H-1B visa caps.
Levy new fees on all H1-B applications that would be dedicated to investigating fraud in the H-1B system.
Prohibit the adjustment of status for any member of the Chinese Communist Party or People's Liberation Army.
You can read the full text of the legislation here.

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