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
