Both Reform For America and the Immigration Policy Center have summarized the Bill. According to the IPC summary, the ENSRA has been included in CIR ASAP. This means that nursing petitions will be exempt from the Immigrant Visa numbers, which is the legislation that groups such as the AAIHR have been pushing all along.
Here are the other highlights for Healthcare workers and Employers:
- Recapture of all Immigrant Visas (Family & Employment) from 1998-2008. Unfortunately this does not include the largest numbers from the 1990s; (UPDATE- The IPC summary says that the recapture is 1992-2008, which makes more sense and is better)
- STEM occupations exempt from the Immigrant Visa numbers.
- Immediate relatives exempt from Immigrant Visas quotas (this could be enormous and would be responsible for slicing the immigrant visa retrogression backlogs);
- Increases the per country visa cap, thus ameliorating the Indian, Chinese, and Mexican retrogressions;
- Spouses and Children of LPRs are Immediate Relatives and therefore IV quota-free;
- Employers have affirmative obligation to report recruiters working on their behalf and can be held liable for the crimes of the recruiter;
- Before an employer can hire an H-1B worker, the employer must meet strict requirements for the recruitment of American workers. This would also likely help Healthcare Petitions since the Healthcare staffing shortages are well-documented.
