The Bush administration wants to streamline the process of bringing foreign workers into the country for temporary nonagricultural employment, saying the current system takes too long and is too cumbersome for businesses desperately looking for employees.

The Labor Department on Wednesday announced that it would propose changes to the H-2B visa program, which allows 66,000 temporary nonagricultural workers to enter the country every year.

The proposals “will give the department additional tools to help protect employees as well as get employers out from under duplicative bureaucracies,” Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said.

Among the suggested changes include getting rid of duplicative applications at the state and federal levels, requiring employers to attest _ under the threat of fines and disbarment _ that they are following all program rules and federalizing the determination of wages.

The proposals also would prohibit employers from passing along the cost of the new proposals to their employees and allow the Labor Department for the first time to enforce terms and conditions of temporary foreigner employment and fine violators.

The Homeland Security Department currently is responsible for enforcing these regulations but Labor has more expertise in the area, Chao said.

Employers are having a hard time filling seasonal nonagricultural jobs, and Chao said making the H-2B system work more efficiently would be one step toward fixing the problem.

With Congress stymied on changing the immigration system, President Bush asked his Cabinet secretaries to come up with ways to modernize the immigration system administratively, Chao said.

The proposed changes will be made public in the Federal Register on Thursday. Chao said they hoped to have final regulations before the end of the year.

The Senate on Wednesday night knocked out two immigration-related proposals from an Iraq war funding bill, including allowing 1.4 million immigrant farm workers to stay in the United States for up to five years and extending an expired program to allow seasonal, nonagricultural workers to return to the country using H-2B visas.