In concert with the House’s recent passage of legislation extending the E-Verify employment verification program (H.R. 6633) and a House subcommittee’s vote to move forward on visa recapture legislation (H.R. 5882), Sen. Robert Menendez introduced the Visa Efficiency and E-Verify Extension Act of 2008 (S. 3414) on July 31, 2008.

S. 3414’s E-Verify provisions are identical to H.R. 6633, which passed the House by a vote of 407-2 on July 31.  The bill extends the E-Verify employment verification pilot program by five years.  The voluntary program allows employers to check the employment status of new hires online and verify their Social Security numbers.  Absent an extension, the program was slated to expire in November 2008.  The E-Verify provisions also authorize two General Accountability Office studies concerning the program’s effect on small business and on erroneous “no-matches”.  The bill further provides that the Social Security Administration’s administrative costs from oversight of the program be reimbursed by the Department of Homeland Security.

S. 3412 additionally includes visa recapture provisions identical to those in H.R. 5882, which the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law approved at a July 31 markup session. These provisions would recapture employment-based and family-based immigrant visas that went unused between fiscal year 1992 and fiscal year 2007 due to bureaucratic delays.  Going forward, the bill would also roll over unused visas into the following fiscal year.

S. 3414 also extends the Conrad State 30 program, which provides every state with 30 annual J-1 visa waivers for foreign medical graduates.