Welcoming Immigrants to a Secure Homeland Act of 2006 or WISH Act of 2006 - Provides for increased: (1) worksite enforcement and fraud detection agents; and (2) foreign student, vocational student, and exchange visitor visa processing personnel.
Provides penalties for: (1) unauthorized employment and false citizenship claims; and (2) social security number misuse.
Sets forth a mandatory electronic employment verification system.
Authorizes the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a nonimmigrant guest worker program of up to 500,000 fiscal year entrants. Sets forth program provisions, including: (1) a three-year initial admittance (with two additional three-year periods available), and a requirement to return to the alien's home country for at least three years before being eligible to return as a guest worker or to receive other immigration benefits; (2) family member admissions eligibility; (3) security and other checks; and (4) eligibility to adjust to immigrant status after six years of U.S. employment.
Prohibits such status for citizens or nationals of Mexico until a bilateral U.S.-Mexico agreement is entered into covering repatriation, data sharing, border, and illegal immigration issues.
Directs the Secretary to grant nonimmigrant guest worker status to qualifying aliens illegally in the United States under specified circumstances. Provides for nonimmigrant status adjustment after an alien has resided under such lawful status in the United States for five years and after returning to the alien's home country.
Directs the Secretary to establish an employment management system.
Authorizes grants for public education and training respecting the changes made by this Act.
Removes numerical limitations for nonimmigrant aliens with advanced degrees.
Exempts from direct numerical limitations: (1) aliens with an advanced degree in science, technology, engineering, or math who have been working in a related field in the United States during the three-year period preceding their application for an employment-based immigrant visa; (2) certain aliens who are priority workers or who have received a national interest waiver; and (3) immediate relatives of an employment-based immigrant.
Authorizes full-time foreign students to work part-time off campus. Requires employer wages, hours, and U.S. citizen recruitment attestation.
Provides temporary visas for certain alien honors graduates waiting for issuance of an employment based nonimmgrant visa.
Authorizes foreign student, vocational student, and exchange visitor travel outside the United States under specified circumstances.
States that the Secretary: (1) may not prohibit a nonimmigrant temporary visitor from traveling up to 100 miles from a U.S. international border; and (2) may permit such a nonimmigrant to travel further from such a border.
Expresses the sense of the Senate that any comprehensive immigration reform during the 109th Congress should include agricultural worker reforms.
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