On January 5, 2006, President Bush signed the International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA) into law. The new act, which went into effect on March 5, 2006, is intended to prevent the abuse of mail order brides by their K-1 or K-3 visa petitioners. The IMBRA imposes restrictions on visa petitioners with criminal backgrounds, as well as visa petitioners who have filed two or more K-1 visa petitions or have filed a K1 visa petition within the past two years. The IMBRA makes the disclosure of the petitioner's criminal record and previous visa petition application history mandatory, and provides for domestic violence prevention education for K-1 and K-3 visa recipients. The new act will affect all petitioners and applicants for K-1 and K-3 marriage visas, not just couples who met through an International Marriage Broker. Read about the major provisions of the IMBRA here.

On May 25, 2006 the US senate approved the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (S. 2611). If the bill becomes law it will nearly double the number of H1-B visas available. The current law limits the issue of H1-B visas to 65,000 per year. The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act would extend this cap to 115,000 visas per year. H1-B visas are nonimmigrant visas allowing foreign professionals, such as engineers, technology specialists and doctors, to enter the United States for work purposes. A US company must sponsor the H1-B alien. The House's parallel piece of immigration legislation, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, did not include a provision for increasing the number of H1-B visas, therefore whether the comprise legislation will include the H-1B provision remains to be seen.