Congress

Jordan lays out timeline for tackling high-skilled tech visas, immigration overhaul efforts

Published

1 year ago

March 11, 2025

House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan has a strategy for how to give President Donald Trump’s top ally, Elon Musk, the changes to high-skilled visa rules the tech billionaire so desperately wants.

In interviews this week, the Ohio Republican said he is eyeing his party’s flagship immigration bill as the legislative vehicle for overhauling existing laws to increase the flow of immigrants into the United States with expertise in science, technology and engineering.

But Jordan made clear he wouldn’t be the driving force behind making those changes to so-called H-1B visas, which let tech companies hire foreign-born experts. The high-tech visas have support among some Republicans but far from the majority of GOP lawmakers.

Rather, Jordan said, he would expect the H-1B overhaul to come up as one of any number of concessions Republicans might make to sway Democrats in the Senate, who will be needed to clear any legislation for the president’s signature.

“I think we got to come back and pass [the bill] and send that to the Senate,” Jordan explained, at which point both chambers could “then start that debate on what happens with various visa programs we have — whether it’s the high-skilled one, whether it’s [agricultural] workers, whether it’s what happens to Dreamers.”

He added that a House-Senate conference committee on that immigration bill would also allow the White House to “weigh in” on high-skilled immigration.

“I think that’s the best play for it all to work, and to have the full debate on everything that impacts immigration policy,” Jordan said.

Still, Jordan’s openness to allowing some sort of visa reform to come to fruition in a final immigration bill suggests that top House Republicans are now willing to negotiate with the tech lobby, Democrats and some Senate Republicans who see workforce benefits to allowing more specialists into the country.

It’s also the first time Jordan has articulated his long-range vision for overhauling immigration policy, including in an arena that’s important to Musk, with whom the committee chair enjoys a longtime rapport. Musk has framed the push for high-skilled immigrants as a top priority for the Trump administration.

Trump has backed Musk in his fight with immigration restrictionists over increases to skilled visas or green card exemptions for high-tech workers. Jordan said Tuesday that he has yet to talk to Musk about high-skilled immigration, but “I’m sure we will.”

A lot has to happen before tackling the issue on Capitol Hill, however — notwithstanding that a new version of the Secure Our Borders Act, which passed the House in the last Congress and is commonly referred to as H.R. 2, has yet to be reintroduced.

First, Jordan said, congressional Republicans must pass broader legislation through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process, which he sees as necessary for the GOP to enact broad swaths of Trump’s domestic policy agenda — including beefed up border security enforcement.

“There’s a sequence to this,” Jordan said, explaining his plans. The House Judiciary chair said it was necessary to “demonstrate to the country we’ve fully secured the border, and then you can look at the visa issues in the context of H.R. 2.”

Congress

Hegseth to brief House Republicans on White House goals for party-line package

Published

31 minutes ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to give a classified briefing Wednesday to a group of House Republicans about the administration’s goals for military funding and another party-line reconciliation bill, according to three people granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.

The gathering will take place during the Republican Study Committee’s weekly lunch and be held in the House SCIF, underscoring the potentially sensitive nature of Hegseth’s planned presentation.

Lawmakers are expected to also press Hegseth on the agreement the Trump administration has reached with Iran to end the war.

Congress

Turek leads Hinson in Iowa Senate poll of likely general election voters

Published

6 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Iowa Democratic Senate nominee Josh Turek has a narrow lead over GOP rival Ashley Hinson in a new internal poll of likely general-election voters.

Turek leads Hinson 47 percent to 45 percent in the poll, conducted by Global Strategy Group from June 8-11 among 1,000 likely general election voters. The poll shows that Republicans have a 10-point edge in voter registration (42 percent to 32 percent) and an electorate that voted for Trump by 9 points (50 percent for Trump to 41 percent for Kamala Harris).

But the polling also shows President Donald Trump’s favorabilities underwater across the electorate, with 45 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable. Among registered independents, Trump is upside down 28 points.

Turek is “significantly outperforming the state’s underlying partisan dynamics,” Global Strategy Group’s Matt Canter & Ramzi Ebbini write in a memo first obtained by Blue Light News. “Republicans maintain substantial advantages in voter registration and party identification, yet Turek enters the general election ahead of Republican Ashley Hinson, with stronger personal favorability ratings, overperforming a generic Democrat, and with clear opportunities to expand his coalition as more voters become familiar with him.”

Some Republicans have acknowledged a concern about Iowa.

“There are some issues there that we got to deal with — the biggest one is trade — trade and tariffs,” said a Republican close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the obstacles.

In his early general election messaging, Turek has leaned into farmers’ frustrations.

“Josh Turek is winning this race because Iowans are sick and tired of multi-millionaire politicians like Ashley Hinson who sell out working families while they get rich,” Turek for Iowa campaign manager Brendan Koch said in a statement first shared with Blue Light News. “We will spend the next 134 days connecting with Iowans in every corner of the state and across the political spectrum to send a fighter for the working class to the U.S. Senate.”

Congress

Capitol agenda: House GOP races to make Recon 3.0 real

Published

7 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Republicans have eight days to prove Reconciliation 3.0 might actually happen.

The House returns Tuesday with only eight legislative days before they break again for the July 4 holiday. If members want a realistic chance at fulfilling their self-imposed timeline for advancing the legislation before the end of July — when they pause work again for another five weeks — they need to move fast.

That means assembling, and then adopting, a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking the filibuster skirting power of the reconciliation process. It took Republicans months to advance such a blueprint during their two earlier reconciliation efforts this Congress.

House GOP leaders are tentatively planning another senior-level reconciliation meeting for Wednesday, according to three people involved in the talks granted anonymity to discuss private plans.

Still, the House is coming back with several other moving items to deal with this week, including promised briefings on the president’s Iran deal and a major housing affordability package GOP leadership wants to clear as soon as Wednesday.

Reconciliation talks also come as President Donald Trump is expected to join the Senate’s GOP lunch Wednesday, where he’ll likely continue pushing the chamber to pass his SAVE America Act or attach pieces of the GOP elections bill to the party-line legislation (an idea one of the bill’s biggest backers, Sen. Mike Lee, spiked Sunday).

Republicans involved with Reconciliation 3.0 discussions also warn they need to reach a final agreement on how to pay for the bill as well as what policy items will be included before GOP leaders can try to advance any budget resolution.

At this point, however, many fiscal hawks and at-risk incumbents are largely unhappy about how the discussions are coming along.

“It’s fake pay-fors for defense spending no one has fully agreed to and no meaningful reforms,” said one House Republican granted anonymity to discuss private talks.

Back on the other side of the Capitol, GOP senators have been in no rush to start working on a third party-line bill, especially as they are consumed with other political fires — like trying to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence to speed up a FISA reauthorization (more on that below).

Rep. Morgan Griffith said he was confident if the right policies are included in the House plan the Senate would then take it up — although he, too, acknowledged the challenges of a short timeline.

“If we do it right, yeah,” Griffith said. “There’s some interesting things out there that are being discussed that could make it a real possibility.”

What else we’re watching:

— OBAMA’S FEROCIOUS IRAN CRITIC SOFTER ON TRUMP DEAL: Tom Cotton, the No. 3 Senate Republican and chair of the chamber’s Intelligence panel, is not alone among GOP defense hawks in finding himself in an awkward position trying to defend Trump’s Iran deal after lambasting President Barack Obama’s a decade before. But the combination of his prior ferocity toward the Iranian regime and his current leadership responsibilities have put him into an especially tight spot.

— FIRST IN IC: DEMS WANT MORE OF JACK SMITH’S REPORT: Senate Judiciary Democrats are asking a federal court to unseal part of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report about his investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first term. The request from the Senators comes as the Judiciary Committee is poised to call Smith to testify about his Biden-era cases before the end of this Congress. Republicans in the House and Senate have been investigating Smith’s work, alleging it amounted to a weaponization of the federal government against the then ex-president.

Jordain Carney and Hailey Fuchs contributed to this report.