Category: Guest Authors

Nazi-Tatted Socialist May Win Maine Senate Seat

By Joe Guzzardi

Maine, a summertime vacationer’s paradise with its 3,500 miles of tidal shoreline that attracts sailors, sea kayakers, and windjammers, will hold important 2026 elections that will determine whether the state drifts further left or maintains its shaky status quo. Also at stake is the Senate majority.

An extreme-left state that embraces sanctuary status immigration policies, Maine doesn’t receive as much publicity for its radicalism as its Northeast neighbor Massachusetts, under Governor Maura Healy, or Boston under Mayor Michelle Wu. In 2026, the results of Maine’s elections for U.S. Senator and governor could help bring the state back from the political abyss. Looking at the candidates, however, a recovery seems unlikely. The best hope is to stem further decline toward progressivism.

Many gubernatorial candidates shed their Democratic affiliation to run on the Independent ticket as they vie to replace termed-out Governor Janet Mills, age 77. Instead of fading into the sunset, Mills will run for U.S. Senator against five-term Republican Susan Collins.

Less well known for her extremism than California’s Gavin Newsom or Illinois’s J.B. Pritzker, Mills was tyrannical during COVID-19, ordering and maintaining shelter-in-place orders. Mills declared a civil emergency a mere three days after the first COVID-19 case was discovered, following that through the end of March with stricter gathering limits, closing businesses deemed nonessential, and issuing a stay-at-home order with exceptions for work and essential shopping. Overkill, to say the least. Mills’ COVID-19 advisory board consisted almost exclusively of her siblings: Dora, M.D., who served as MaineHealth’s chief improvement officer, as well as her brothers Peter and Paul.

In eight years, a bad governor can do major harm, and Mills did. Mills led the state deep into debt — nearly $1 billion — which will require severe cuts in services and state jobs. Maine’s projected 2024–25 shortfall was around $408 million, but it has more than doubled to $949 million. Mills’ costly red-carpet welcome of illegal aliens is a major contributor to the budget shortfall. Mills, in office since 2019, proposed to add 75,000 more illegal aliens by 2029 — a population larger than Maine’s biggest city, Portland — and in the process throw citizens further under the bus.

The vehicle that Mills will rely on to provide for the unlawfully present aliens is her newly developed Office of New Americans (ONA), created through the governor’s executive order. Mills’ plan would work toward “making Maine a home of opportunity for all, by welcoming and supporting immigrants to strengthen Maine’s workforce, enhance the vibrancy of Maine’s communities, and build a strong and inclusive economy.” To Mills, the illegal aliens are “New Mainers,” whose total will reach 300,000 once a spouse and an average of two children for each recruit arrives.

Mills has been a fixture in Maine politics since 1980, when she was the District Attorney of Androscoggin, Franklin, and Oxford Counties. After 45 years, Mainers should be ready for a new face. Indeed, Mills may not survive her primary against her extremist challenger, Iraq veteran and oysterman Graham Platner. In various social media posts and random comments, Platner called himself a “communist,” called “all” police “bastards,” said rural white Americans “actually are” racist and stupid, minimized issues those in the military have in reporting sexual assault, and said those who are raped should “not get so f — -ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.”

In his most aggressive rant yet, Platner called to abolish ICE and force agents to testify before Congress. His complete statement at a recent town hall:
“People need to go to prison. We need to have public hearings, public, frankly, probably trials down the road, because the American people deserve to know what the hell is going on right now, and how the people doing it can justify it to themselves. If I have my way, even if we can’t get anything to happen in the Justice Department immediately, I want to drag every single ICE agent that’s been wearing a mask in front of a Senate subcommittee, make them take their mask off, and explain to the American people what the hell they’ve been up to.”

As for Mainers who oppose Medicare-for-All, Platner recommends following them around in public, yelling at them with every step they take. “That’s real power,” Platner said.

In an earlier era, Platner’s blustering would automatically disqualify him from serious consideration, especially for the U.S. Senate. But politics are dramatically different today. Platner, Nazi tattoo and all, is campaigning as an everyday working man, a simple oysterman working on the people’s behalf to conquer the affordability crisis.

Early surveying shows that Platner’s message is resonating. Two newly released polls on Maine’s hotly contested 2026 U.S. Senate race returned very different outcomes: one shows Platner beating Mills in the Democratic primary and then besting Collins in a general election matchup. The second poll found that Platner would lose to Collins in a head-to-head race. No surprise, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed Platner as Maine’s future.

The Republican National Committee never imagined that it would get behind Collins, whom it generously refers to as a moderate. Collins’ Senate voting record is mixed and includes nay on Amy Coney Barrett but yea on Ketanji Brown Jackson, and yes to convict Trump on his second impeachment trial.

Mills? Platner? Collins? The votes cast in the Maine senators’ offices affect Americans in the other 49 states. In Maine, polling means nothing. In 2020, when Collins trailed her Democratic opponent Sara Gideon in every poll for the entire summer, when the votes were counted, Collins won going away. Democrats shouldn’t discount Collins, Maine’s comeback kid.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

End the H-1B—Count the Reasons Why

By Joe Guzzardi

Since President Donald Trump told Fox Network television host Laura Ingraham —and reiterated multiple times—that the United States needed “certain talent,” a reference to H-1B employment visas, thousands of outraged words have been published defending U.S. tech workers.

The America First commentaries rightly scorned Trump for his dismissive opinion of U.S. tech workers’ skills and how the visa displaces thousands of employed Americans and poses an insurmountable roadblock for recent university graduates with science, technology, engineering, and math degrees. To add insult to the painful injury of job displacement, tech employers shamelessly fire existing staff, then cry to Congress that, to stave off financial ruin, they urgently need the annual H-1B lottery, which will yield 65,000 of the world’s “best and brightest.” In truth, the foreign nationals are mostly average-skilled workers from China and India.

While the annual arrival of 65,000 international workers coming to usurp Americans’ white-collar jobs is disgraceful and most directly and dramatically affects tech employees, that represents only a fraction of the harm caused by continuing the practice of welcoming foreign-born workers via a random visa lottery.

The H-1B is a dual intent visa, meaning that the guest worker can either return to his native country or remain in the U.S. after his employment document expires. He thereby gets in line for permanent residency and eventual citizenship. Such misplaced generosity means more pressure on already-bankrupt Medicare and Social Security programs and a further collapse of the failed K-12 public schools.

Birthright citizenship and chain migration make a bad situation worse. Guest workers who start new families or expand existing families before entering permanent residency will still benefit from birthright citizenship, an anchor that makes the child’s parents more difficult to deport when they lose their legally present status.

Chain migration allows the foreign-born petitioners to select America’s future population, regardless of talent or education. Once approved, a legal immigrant can bring his or her nuclear family, consisting of a spouse and minor children. After that, the chain begins. When the original immigrants and his or her spouse become U.S. citizens, they can bring in their parents, adult sons and daughters along with their spouses and children, and their adult siblings, creating a potentially never-ending chain—all possible from one immigrant.

Immigration, mostly through chain migration, is population growth’s main driver. Consider Frisco, Texas, an IT hub that has hired a large H-1B workforce. In 1990, the year Congress passed the Immigration Act, Frisco’s population was 6,100. Fast forward to 2025, and the town’s population soared to 243,300. The Census Bureau projects that by 2029 Frisco will have 275,800 residents. The dramatic population growth has significantly altered the town’s demographic composition. The Frisco Independent School District, for example, has a 65,000 enrollment; 43 percent are Asian, mostly H-1B workers’ children. Again, using 1990 as the benchmark, FISD enrollment that year was 1,500. Today, to accommodate the non-English speakers, FISD offers two sections of English as a Second Language classes. Immigration and, more specifically, the H-1B visas have converted Frisco from a quiet little Texas town into an unrecognizable diverse community that natives neither approved of nor wanted.

No H-1B investigation is complete without a reference to its illegitimate child, the H-4 EAD for spouses. Historically, the H-4 excluded work permission, but in 2015, the Obama administration via executive order authorized spousal employment. Unlike the H-1B holder who is tied to his visa-sponsoring employer, the H-4 EAD holder, predominantly women, can work anywhere. The Supreme Court recently refused to take up the H-4 EAD’s legality, which means that only congressional action or a regulatory change can end the Executive Branch’s ability to issue work authorization to nonimmigrant categories that are not statutorily authorized to work in the U.S.

In summary, all three government branches—Legislative, Judicial, and Executive—have demonstrated indifference to the harm the H-1B has inflicted on U.S. tech workers and sovereign America.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

Trump‘s H-1B Advocacy Infuriates His Base

By Joe Guzzardi

As then-presidential candidate Ronald Reagan said with a smile to incumbent Jimmy Carter in their 1980 debate, “There you go again.” The simple sentence that helped Reagan win 44 states and 499 electoral votes came to mind when President Donald Trump insisted to Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the United States needs “to bring in more talent,” a reference to H-1B visa holders. To the disappointment of his MAGA base, Trump has too-often indicated that he favors an H-1B expansion. The unfair, anti-U.S. tech worker H-1B is a serious national problem and does not deserve a smile like Reagan’s in response to Carter’s propaganda.

“H-1B visa thing won’t be a big priority for you? If you wanna raise wages for Americans, you can’t flood the country with thousands of foreign workers,” Ingraham asked. Trump replied, “You have to bring in talent.”

Ingraham pushed back and correctly noted that America’s universities and colleges have graduated plenty of skilled IT workers, all eagerly looking for jobs. Every year, MIT, Georgia Tech, Cal, and myriad other universities turn out top-notch talent. Trump is wrong to promote, on national television, more foreign-born Indians and Chinese to displace Americans from their well-paid, white-collar jobs.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in his unsuccessful attempt to help Trump out, later said that what the president meant was that Indian engineers would travel to the U.S., train Americans, and then return home. Ironically, the existing H-1B program means that Americans train the arriving overseas workers and then head to the unemployment line. When Trump’s ill-advised H-1B advocacy spread throughout the Internet, his MAGA base was understandably shocked and outraged.

Trump’s position on illegal immigration since his 2016 campaign has been clear. The president adamantly opposes illegal immigration in all its forms and has proven his opposition by immediately closing the border after his 2024 election. He also ended Biden’s parole programs that included illegally granting employment authorization for unvetted aliens and put into motion the removal of Temporary Protected Status recipients when their 18-month valid periods expired.

But Trump’s thoughts about legal immigration, especially regarding the H-1B visa scam, have always been muddled. A few weeks before his 2025 inauguration, Trump supported Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk’s thinking that more H-1B visas were essential to keep the economy humming along. At the time, Trump said, “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them.” Ramaswamy left to campaign for Ohio’s gubernatorial office and Musk feuded with and then divorced the president, so nothing came of the DOGE duo’s influence.

Since the Immigration Act of 1990 created the H-1B, the visa has given license to employers to import cheap labor to displace Americans and at the same time discourage qualified American tech students from applying—a pointless exercise when corporate America has predetermined that job openings will be filled with Indians or Chinese. Essentially defined, the H-1B and other employment-based visas mean that a job will go to a foreign-born worker.

If Trump wants to make a big splash before the 2026 midterm campaigning begins in earnest, he should follow the advice of Center for Immigration Studies fellow, lawyer, and author John Miano, who wrote that the best H-1B solution is to end it. Killing the H-1B would also mark the end of the media gaslighting that has helped keep it afloat.

Statistics support the argument to end the H-1B. In 2023, there were 4,804,840 people working in U.S. computer occupations. By 2024, 4,786,660 people worked in the field. Over that year, the United States lost 18,180 computer jobs. Yet in FY 2025, the U.S. imported 77,000 computer workers on H-1B visas alone. The math proves that the H-1B is not filling shortages, as Trump and other immigration expansionists argue. Instead, the H-1B functions to displace Americans and satisfy tech mogul donors—exactly as Congress designed it.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

USCIS Introduces New Citizenship Test

By Joe Guzzardi

President Donald Trump’s January 20, 2025 Executive Order (EO) 14161, “Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” directed the Department of Homeland Security to promote lawful immigrants’ proper assimilation and to foster “a unified American identity and attachment to the Constitution, laws, and founding principles of the United States.”

In accordance with Trump’s EO, effective mid-October 2025, citizenship candidates began taking a slightly revised version of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) test. USCIS administers the Naturalization Civics test pursuant to the statutory requirements found in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), section 312, which requires aliens to demonstrate knowledge of American history and civics as a basic citizenship requirement for naturalization. The law states that a naturalization applicant must have “an understanding of the English language, including an ability to read, write, and speak words in ordinary usage in the English language” and have a “knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of the history, and of the principles and form of government, of the United States.”

EO and the INA have set reasonable, noble goals for lawful permanent residents who must have lived in the U.S. for five years or more; LPRs who gained their immigration status through marriage to a U.S. citizen have a three-year wait period. Most test-takers will pass and become American citizens. However, based on my personal 20-year experience in the California public school system preparing refugees and amnesty recipients for the citizenship test, most will not truly be competent in the required skills.

The Oral Civics Test is the main way the government checks U.S. history and government knowledge. Here’s how it works: Beginning in the middle of October 2025, those applying for citizenship will be expected to correctly answer 12 out of 20 questions that are randomly selected from an updated bank of 128 questions. Questions cover topics like the Constitution, government branches, American history, and citizens’ rights and responsibilities. The administrator asks the questions out loud, and the reply must be made out loud. Previously, applicants only had to answer 6 out of 10 questions correctly from a pool of 100 questions. With the change, the number of possible questions increases to 128, and applicants must answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly — twice as many as before. To ensure accuracy, the U.S. Library of Congress vets all questions and answers and again USCIS made all answers available so applicants could prepare.

The English test checks three skills: speaking, reading, and writing. The officer asks a simple question to evaluate verbal and comprehension skills. Then, the applicant must read one of three simple sentences. Finally, they must write one of those sentences. Two chances are offered to pass each section.

Note that USCIS offers generous exceptions.

The 50/20 Rule

If you’re at least 50 years old and have been a lawful permanent resident, a green card holder, for at least 20 years, you may be exempt from taking the English language portion of the test. You’ll still need to take the civics test, but you can take it in your native language, making it more accessible for non-English speakers.

55/15 Rule

Similarly, if you’re 55 or older and have been a permanent resident for at least 15 years, you’re also exempt from the English language test. Like the 50/20 exemption, you’ll still have to complete the civics test, but again, you can do so in your native language.

65/20 Special Consideration

If you’re 65 or older and have been a permanent resident for at least 20 years, you’re eligible for special consideration. Not only are you exempt from the English language test, but you also qualify to take a simplified version of the civics test, which contains fewer questions, making the process less stressful.

Since USCIS oversees the process standards, it also has discretion over determining whether naturalization applicants meet the necessary requirements. Therein lies the rub. Like USCIS, which makes available the Naturalization Test and Study Materials and Resources for Educational Programs, I gave students applying under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 the probable questions and answers. The amnesty program required 40 hours of classroom English instruction and a passing grade on the INA oral exam. When the students completed their 40-hour minimum, I quizzed them to evaluate their test-readiness. The majority failed. Accordingly, I didn’t sign the INA form which confirmed that the students had completed both the hours requirement and the English exam. Not long thereafter, I received a call from the local INA office ordering me to sign regardless of the students’ failings. The INA had heard, no doubt through activist groups like MALDEF, that I wasn’t signing off. When I explained that the students were unprepared, I was ordered nevertheless to approve all applicants.

The USCIS administrators pass nearly all citizenship candidates. The 2022 initial plus re-test pass rate was 95.7%, inconsistent not only with my experience but also Census Bureau findings. About half, 47%, of immigrant adults in the U.S. have limited English proficiency, meaning that they speak English less than very well. Reasons for examiners’ leniency could include compassion for candidates who have little if any test-taking experience, and none in a second language. Extreme nervousness could encourage sympathy. But most of all, failing citizenship-seekers in significant percentages would stir up a hornet’s nest among the immigration lobby and lead to vocal charges that the test is purposely too difficult because the administration is anti-immigration — a distraction that Trump doesn’t need.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org

$100K Visa Fee Is Peanuts for Indentured Servitude

By Joe Guzzardi

President Donald Trump, on Sept. 19, issued his Proclamation entitled “Restrictions on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers” that imposes a $100,000, one-time fee for most new non-immigrant visa petitions filed after September 21 and restricts the ability of certain other H-1B visa holders to enter the U.S. The Proclamation applies only to petitions that have not yet been filed and not to aliens who already hold current, valid H-1B visas. Per the order, employers must now provide proof of payment when filing H-1B petitions, with enforcement overseen by the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security. The administration’s goal is to end the visa’s abuse and thereby ensure that only the most highly skilled foreign workers are selected for entry while encouraging employers to prioritize Americans.

The industry’s immediate response to the Trump administration’s abrupt but forceful action was widespread confusion as some H-1B visa holders cancelled plans to re-enter or scheduled return flights to the U.S. before the proclamation’s Sept. 21 effective date. However, for the H-1B’s countless critics who have been crying foul since the Immigration Act of 1990 created the American job-killing visa, cautious optimism prevailed.

The fee has had the desired effect of dampening employer enthusiasm for cheaper foreign labor. Walmart, America’s largest private-sector employer with approximately 1.6 million workers on its domestic payroll — a total that includes about 2,400 H-1B visa holders — announced that it would temporarily suspend hiring new H-1Bs.

Four decades ago, Congress, craven employers, and pro-immigration expansionists sold the visa as a vital stopgap measure for companies that could not fill essential jobs with domestic workers. But their fairy-tale vision contrasted sharply with reality. Using the H-1B program to facilitate the offshoring of U.S. jobs and replace U.S. workers is the exact opposite of the program’s advertised purpose of helping employers fill temporary labor shortages with workers possessing skills that are in short supply domestically. If it were operating as intended, the program should, when necessary, bring in skilled workers to complement the U.S. labor force. While in some cases H-1B workers are skilled and benefit the U.S. economy, the data showed early in the program’s history that a large percentage of visas were used to undercut and replace U.S. workers to boost corporate profits.

Prospective IT employers were understandably shocked at the new $100,000 fee. Before the Proclamation, the H-1B petition fee could range from approximately $460 to about $4,460. But visa critics were pleased at the hike because for decades, independently published research reports from conservative and liberal think tanks proved that unscrupulous employers underpaid and overworked their H-1B labor force. Ten years ago, President Jimmy Carter’s labor secretary Ray Marshall called the H-1B “one of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems. The supporters argue that we have a shortage of college-educated workers. Well, there’s no evidence of that in the numbers…” During the decade since Marshall scorned the H-1B, the only significant change is that IT employers have gone on a dramatic firing spree, dismissing older, experienced native-born professionals while the annual lottery has admitted 85,000 new workers year after year. Some employers are exempt from the annual 85,000 cap, including universities and their affiliated nonprofit entities, nonprofit research organizations, and government research organizations. Because of the corporate exceptions, the arriving H-1B total far exceeds 85,000.

Of the top H-1B employers, many visas went to outsourcing firms — about one quarter of the annual 85,000 allotment. In 2024, at least 95,000 workers at U.S.-based tech companies were laid off; layoffs hit a peak in 2023 when around 200,000 tech workers were fired. Today, the tech job market is horrible. Over 200 tech companies have laid off 91,000 employees, yet the visa lottery persists as if the market were tight.

The five domestic corporations with the most H-1Bs include Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Apple, and Tata Computer Services, with J.P. Morgan narrowly missing the top tier. Most enjoyed excellent fiscal 2024 net earnings: Microsoft, $88 billion, a 22% increase over 2023; Meta, $62 billion, up 59% year-over-year; Amazon, $60 billion. All could easily afford $100,000. But now the question the corporate titans must answer is why pay $100,000 for a foreign-born employee when recent college graduates or fired, unemployed workers could be hired for $0.00 and without immigration procedural headaches. Well-paid, white-collar IT jobs should go to Americans, not Indians who comprise 73% of the total or Chinese nationals, 13%.

$100,000 is a bargain basement deal for employers. Since the visa is valid for three years and includes an automatic three-year renewal, the company will pay about $16,666 per year over a six-year term for an indentured worker. Instead of serving its original purpose, the H-1B visa is a vehicle that suppresses wages, erodes job security, and sidesteps fair employment practices. For years, as it has laid off hundreds of thousands of talented, experienced U.S. engineers, the tech industry has vigorously lobbied Congress, pleading that without its annual overseas worker allocation, their businesses would teeter on the brink of collapse. So, put up or shut up. If the H-1Bs are as imperative to corporate survival as its advocates claim, then the $100,000 is pocket change.

Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst. Contact him at jguzzardi@ifspp.org