Congress doubles H-1B visas while quietly relaxing employer hiring rules
H.R. 6305 — High-skilled Immigration Reform for Employment Act · Filed by Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Nov 25, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill doubles the annual H-1B visa cap from 65,000 to 130,000, expands the definition of H-1B-dependent employers (raising thresholds that trigger stricter hiring rules), and creates a $25 million/year grant program for states to improve STEM education in K-12 schools and higher education. The visa expansion benefits employers seeking foreign skilled workers; the grant program is a modest public investment in STEM workforce development.
Why we flagged it
The core mechanism is H-1B visa expansion and employer-rule relaxation—a labor-market liberalization favoring employers seeking foreign skilled workers. The STEM education grant is a secondary, unrelated provision addressing workforce supply from the domestic side, making it a rider to the primary visa-expansion purpose.
- Section 3 (Promoting American Ingenuity Grant Program) authorizes $25M/year in STEM education grants to states. Substantively unrelated to H-1B visa mechanics; appears designed to offset political opposition to visa expansion by framing bill as workforce-development legislation.
What the text implies
- Doubling H-1B cap without corresponding increase in dependent-employer compliance thresholds may reduce domestic-hiring incentives for large tech firms, potentially suppressing entry-level U.S. worker hiring in STEM fields.
- Relaxing dependent-employer thresholds (raising the percentage of H-1B workers a firm can employ before triggering stricter rules) may allow larger firms to rely more heavily on visa labor without triggering compliance burdens.
- The $25M STEM education grant ($5M/year per state if evenly distributed) is modest relative to the scale of visa expansion; unlikely to materially offset labor-market effects of doubling H-1B availability.
- Bill does not address wage-protection mechanisms (e.g., prevailing-wage requirements for H-1B positions), leaving potential for wage suppression in affected fields.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The H-1B expansion may depress wages for U.S. workers in tech and skilled fields competing with visa holders, and relaxing dependent-employer rules reduces protections requiring employers to recruit domestically first. However, the $25M STEM education grant is a genuine public investment in workforce development. The net effect on ordinary workers is unclear and depends on labor-market dynamics and whether STEM education gains offset visa-driven wage pressure.
Who stands to gain
- technology companies and tech-dependent sectors (expanded access to foreign skilled labor)
- consulting and staffing firms specializing in H-1B placement
- state education agencies and K-12/higher-ed institutions (STEM grant recipients)
Named in the bill
Department of Education, Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), Section 214(g) (H-1B cap), Section 212(n)(3)(A) (H-1B-dependent employer definition), Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Higher Education Act of 1965
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Democrats.
- Nov 25, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Nov 25, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary and House Committee on Education and Workforce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committee on the Judiciary, for…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $520,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 25 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Raja Krishnamoorthi, the sponsor, reported $763,350 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Vanteo Fka Bdv Solutions LLC — $350,000 on 2 filings
- Northern Trust Corporation — $170,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 19, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,182 characters) on Jul 5, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 19, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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