http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1570278,curpg-1.cms
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WASHINGTON: The US Senate has approved a landmark immigration reform bill that would give citizenship to millions of illegal persons and double the number of H1-B visas from the present 65,000, a move that would greatly benefit thousands of Indian software professionals.

The Bill passed on Thursday provides for doubling the H1-B visas from the present 65,000 annually to about 115,000 and with a 20 per cent increase on an annual basis.

Various software and technology companies like Microsoft and Intel have been pressurising the US government by threatening to move jobs abroad if it does not raise the cap on H1-B visas and allow more skilled workers into the country.

In the version that cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee was also a new student visa classification for high tech studies.

However, the House version of the Bill has nothing on the H1-B visa and according to analysts it is most likely to be neglected when legislators get down to the negotiations at the conferrence committee stage.

The main provision of the Bill is however to provide nearly 10 million to 12 million illegals living in America citizenship rights that was denounced in many quarters as downright amnesty and something that House of Representatives has nothing to say when it passed the immigration legislation late last year.

The US Senate cleared the Bill with a 62-32 comfortable margin but threw up the deep split between the majority Republican Party and the Conservatives.

The House bill does not have anything on temporary worker programme or eventual citizenship and it would make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges.

"Why not say to those undocumented workers who are working jobs that the rest of us refuse, come out from the shadows," Senator John McCain, a key architect of the bill said McCain was one of those who offered the Senate version that provides for 400 mile border fencing, a new guest worker programme and citizenship to all illegals.

38 Democrats, 23 Republicans and one independent voted for the bill; but 32 Republicans and four Democrats opposed it. The Conservatives was trying to beat the Senate measure or substantially dilute it with a series of amendments.

"I commend the Senate for passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform before the Memorial Day deadline set by its leaders," the President George W Bush said in a statement. "I look forward to working together with both the House of Representatives and the Senate to produce a bill for me to sign into law."

However, some Congress members argued that Bush must go for heavy lobbying if he was going to get a Bill to sign.

The Senate deals with illegal persons in three tier wayfashion -those who were in America for more than five years can stay, work and eventually apply for citizenship.

There would be minimum fines of USD 3250, they should pay applicable back taxes and learn English; illegals who have been here for longer than two years but less than five have to travel to a point of entry before re-entering US legally and they too will have to pay the fines, taxes and other requirements.

The final category is of those who have been around for less than two years and will have to return with no guarantee of being accepted back into US.