President Donald Trump has already slashed border crossings and undertaken an aggressive campaign to deport illegal immigrants.
But other issues related to immigration—including legal immigration under H-1B visas for skilled workers—are thornier.
As American companies struggle to find certain specialized talents locally amid the nationwide push to reindustrialize triggered by the president’s tariffs, Trump and the GOP must manage a complex balancing act on H-1B visas.
Trump has sometimes castigated the H-1B program as rife with abuse. In a September proclamation announcing changes to the program, including a $100,000 fee for new petitions, he warned that the visa replaces domestic labor and threatens both national security and American prosperity.
In recent weeks, he has also defended the program, arguing that H-1B workers can teach American workers skills for the high-paying jobs he hopes to return to the United States.
Republicans in Congress are also at odds on the best way forward. Some are advancing measures to remake or even eliminate H-1Bs, while others have defended the visa.
Related Story
“Do we need some modifications to it? Maybe—but we’re not going to do away with the program,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told The Epoch Times.
As Republicans confront voter discontent over the H-1B visa and face internal divisions over how to address it, some analysts and politicians believe Democrats could stand to gain from the issue.
“H-1B is one area where the Democrats can outflank some of the Republicans on the right,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which seeks to curb immigration into the United States, told The Epoch Times.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who just announced a Senate run, told The Epoch Times that the H-1B debate is “an internal fight that MAGA is having.”
Crockett defended the H-1B program as “smart immigration policy,” and predicted that the division could demoralize GOP voters ahead of the midterms.
But some Democrats and left-of-center voices have gone beyond casting the dispute as Republican infighting—with some left-wing lawmakers even coming out in opposition to the program.
In January, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) decried the visa in response to pro-H-1B comments from Trump donor Elon Musk.
In a post on X, Sanders wrote that the function of the H-1B visa is “to replace good-paying American jobs with low-wage indentured servants from abroad.”
Also in January, Sanders offered an amendment to the Laken Riley Act that would have doubled the $1,500 H-1B fee at the time and prevented companies from hiring H-1B workers to replace laid-off Americans.
Democrat Amy Acton, who is campaigning against Vivek Ramaswamy for the governorship of Ohio, recently condemned a December 2024 post on X from Ramaswamy that helped touch off a debate among conservatives over immigration and foreign labor.
At the time, the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate wrote that tech firms often hire non-Americans because American culture “has venerated mediocrity over excellence.”
Although Ramaswamy has spoken positively of H-1Bs, he has also expressed support for Trump’s fee hike. At a Turning Point USA event in October, he called the H-1B issue “complicated” and said it lags behind illegal immigration in importance.
CNN anchor Abby Phillip raised concerns about the H-1B in a recent exchange with Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, who defended the program.
“It needs some degree of reform,” Phillip told the “Shark Tank” host. “There are real concerns that people have about companies that abuse the system.”
Christina Pushaw, a communications specialist for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, suggested that Phillip’s comments reflect a broader pattern—one that could spell trouble for the GOP.
“The more it becomes mainstream for Democrats to criticize the great foreign replacement of American workers, and the more the GOP establishment defends infinity ‘legal immigration’ to serve corporate interests, the more it looks like these Dems are picking up a crown from the gutter,” she wrote on X on Nov. 13.
Created through the Immigration Act of 1990, the H-1B program lets companies hire non-immigrant aliens on a temporary basis for specialized jobs. Those eligible typically have a bachelor’s degree or above.
While H-1Bs are limited to six years, the visa can be extended if the alien’s employer is seeking a green card for them. Many H-1B holders transition to permanent residency and, in some cases, become citizens.
Congress initially set a cap of 65,000 H-1Bs per year. In 2000, Congress permanently eliminated the H-1B cap for nonprofit research institutions and universities. In 2004, lawmakers added another 20,000 slots for foreign workers with advanced degrees—a master’s or above—from American institutions.
The number of approved H-1B petitions rose from 178,803 in 2000 to almost 400,000 in 2024, according to an analysis from the Pew Research Center.
While H-1B visa holders work in many fields, they are heavily concentrated in the tech industry. Big Tech companies are among the largest H-1B petitioners.
Roughly two-thirds of the 400,000 H-1B applications approved in 2023 were for computer-related jobs, with Amazon, Google, and other Silicon Valley giants among the top employers, according to Pew Research data.
READ MORE HERE
—Nathan Worcester
BOOKMARKS
At least 15 people, as well as a suspected gunman, have been confirmed dead following a mass shooting at a Sydney beach targeting a Jewish Hanukkah festival on the evening of Dec. 14, The Epoch Times’ Alfred Bui reported. Police have said they believe that a father-son duo was behind the shooting.
Conservative José Antonio Kast has been elected president of Chile, defeating Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, The Epoch Times’ Joseph Lord reported. It marks a major shift from 2021, when Chileans elevated a member of the Chilean Communist Party to the presidency.
Two U.S. Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed, and three others were injured in an ambush by a gunman from the ISIS terrorist group in Syria on Dec. 13, The Epoch Times’ Tom Ozimek reported. The Pentagon said that the attack occurred in the central Syrian town of Palmyra as U.S. forces were providing support for ongoing counter-ISIS and other operations.
Though the Nigerian government denies claims of religious persecution, Christians in the nation face a tide of Islamic violence, The Epoch Times’ Beige Luciano-Adams reported. The plight of Christians in the West African nation received relatively little global attention until the Trump administration threatened to intervene.
