10. Section by Section Summary of H.R. 3012 – The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act of 2011

Section 1. Sets out the title of the bill.

Section 2. Numerical Limitation to Any Single Foreign State

Amends INA Section 202(a)(2) to deal only with family based immigration and separates out the employment-based green card quotas section.

Increases per country quotas for family categories from 7 to 15%.

Eliminates 1000 green cards per year subtraction from family green cards available to Chinese nationals (a creation of the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992).

This section takes effect as if enacted on September 30, 2011 and shall apply to the 2012 fiscal year which began October 1, 2011.

Eliminates per country quotas in employment-based green card categories.

The elimination of the quotas will be phased in over three years. In fiscal year 2012 (October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012), 15% of 0all EB-2 and EB-3 green cards will be reserved for all countries except for the two EB using nationalities as of 201(India and China).

In fiscal year 2013 (October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2013), 10% of all EB-2 and EB-3 green cards will be reserved for all countries except for the two EB using nationalities as of 2011 (India and China).

In fiscal year 2014 (October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014), 10% of all EB-2 and EB-3 green cards will be reserved for all countries except for the two EB using nationalities as of 2012 (likely India and China).

During the phase in, the number of green cards going to any one country under the 15% and 10% reserves noted above may not exceed 25% (except for India and China) of that reserve. For the remaining green cards being split between China and India, no more than 85% can go to either country.

If the phase in rules would prevent the total number of green cards made available in EB-2 and EB-2 from being issued, such visas may be issued during the remainder of the fiscal year in question anyway.