Sponsors (5)
Official title: Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to reform and reduce fraud and abuse in certain visa programs for aliens working temporarily in the United States, and for other purposes.
Introduced September 29, 2025 by Charles Ernest Grassley · Last progress September 29, 2025
The bill increases pay, transparency, enforcement, and protections for H‑1B and L‑1 workers and shields U.S. employees from displacement, but does so by imposing higher wage floors, caps, reporting obligations, and penalties that raise employer costs, add administrative complexity, and may slow processing or constrain firms that rely on temporary foreign staffing.
U.S. workers (especially tech and middle-class employees): the bill bans employer displacement by H‑1B and L‑1 hires and extends no‑displacement protections, reducing the risk that employers replace U.S. employees with temporary visa holders.
H‑1B beneficiaries and immigrant tech workers: raises the wage floor by requiring pay at least the highest of prevailing wage, occupational median, or OES skill‑level 2 median, increasing compensation for many H‑1B hires.
Jobseekers, immigrants, and the public: increases transparency and program oversight through required public job postings, annual DHS/DOL reporting, new fees and a Treasury account, and funding for additional DOL staff and investigations, improving public information and enforcement capacity.
Employers (especially small and mid-sized firms) and the broader tech workforce: higher wage floors, expanded recruitment/posting rules, new documentation and reporting, and increased enforcement will raise hiring costs and administrative burden and may reduce H‑1B/L‑1 hiring or push work offshore.
Firms with substantial foreign staffing: the 50% cap on H‑1B/L employees at firms with 50+ staff may force restructuring, limit access to specialized talent, or constrain business models that rely on foreign workers.
Immigrants and employers: stricter substantive standards, new waiver procedures, priority adjudication rules, and faster decision deadlines create a risk of processing delays, rushed decisions, or higher rates of denials, increasing uncertainty for workers and sponsors.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Raises H‑1B wage floors, requires 30‑day public job postings before H‑1B filings, expands nondisplacement rules, and limits L‑1 outplacements to one year without a Labor waiver.
Raises wage floors for H‑1B hires, requires employers to post detailed job listings publicly before filing, and tightens rules that prevent employers from displacing U.S. workers. It also limits placement of L‑1 specialized‑knowledge workers at unaffiliated worksites to one cumulative year unless a Labor Secretary waiver is obtained, creates a fast‑track waiver process, and adds nondisplacement and placement controls for L‑1 petitions. The bill changes employer obligations for two major temporary work visa categories (H‑1B and L‑1): higher wage determination standards, new public notice and recruitment constraints, bans on certain outsourcing/placement practices without waivers, expanded nondisplacement protections for U.S. workers, and DHS/Labor rulemaking and waiver deadlines to enforce those limits.