House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law Approved Bill to 'Recapture' Unused Employment-Based Visas
The House subcommittee approved a bill that would allow the "recapture" of previously 
unused employment-based visas. The bill ("H.R. 5882"), introduced April 23 by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), chairman of the subcommittee, and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), was approved on July 31, 2008 during a markup session. Eight Democratic representatives approved the bill. The bill now moves to the House Judiciary Committee for consideration. The objective of the bill is to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA") to recapture visas that were authorized between fiscal year 1992 and 2007, but went unused due to bureaucratic delays. The bill prevents visas from being lost in the future by rolling them over to the following fiscal year. The visa recapture applies to both employment-based visas and family-based visas.
Rep. Lofgren stated that "H.R. 5882 is about ensuring that bureaucratic 
inefficiency and waste do not stand in the way of U.S. citizen families and businesses trying to use our immigration system in a legal way." The bill does not change the present number of available visas and does not add visas to caps. What the bill does is find visas lost due to "bureaucratic inefficiency." If the bill eventually becomes law, it would mean that approximately 557,000 additional or "lost" visas would be available for use. It would appear that a broad coalition supports the bill. Such law could have a very positive effect on Florida, but immigration reform would still be needed to affect its economy.
On June 24, 2008, The House Appropriations Committee approved a U.S. Department of Homeland Security funding bill for $39.9 billion. However, the bill also rejects an amendment to extend the federal electronic employment verification program or E-Verify.