Since @SenatorDurbin was relying on the Congressional Research Service (CRS) findings to correctly dismantle what a terrible bill S386 is, he should refer to the same CRS report that states the "dual-intent" clause should be removed for H-1B & L visas - source of the problem.

The dual-intent clause is the main reason behind the chaos we are seeing with the green card backlog for India, and the exploitation of the H-1B & L visa programs. Prior to 1990, there was a much clearer distinction between immigrant & non-immigrants under the law.

Before the Immigration Act of 1990, if you wanted a temporary worker, you brought them on a temporary work visa for a specific duration & then they had to leave & return back to their home country. If you needed a permanent worker, you just brought them on a green card.

It wasn't until Congress enacted the Immigration Act of 1990 that turned the whole system into a complete mess. It allowed "temporary" work visas to turn into "dual-intent" visas. So there was nothing temporary about H-1B & L visas anymore. The intent was permanent residency.

So companies used the promise of a green card to lure eager obedient foreign workers who would be willing to work for lower than market wages for several years in exchange for green cards. This led to the Indian IT outsourcing companies coming in to take advantage of such system.

All the major tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Google, & etc. loved this system because it opened up the market to access loyal indentured foreign workers who couldn't bargain for better options in terms of pay & benefits like American workers could.

The H-1B & L visas DOES NOT require employers to prove they couldn't find qualified Americans for the job, but the green card process does. So now employers had to come up with ways to disqualify Americans from the jobs their H-1B workers were doing so they could get them GCs.

So this is why we have a dysfunctional skilled-immigration system; one that harms American workers & exploits foreign workers. The first step to solving this problem is getting rid of the dual-intent provision. This would really be a significant reform that would fix a lot.