The Florida Board of Governors, which oversees the state’s public university system, temporarily suspended the hiring of foreign faculty and staff through the H-1B visa program on March 2.
Each board of trustees is instructed to refrain from using the H-1B visa program to hire any new employees through Jan. 5, 2027, according to a regulation posted on the board’s website.
The measures will apply to the 12 public universities included in the State University System of Florida, which are overseen by the board.
The move followed a directive issued by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in October 2025 that calls on the board to crack down on potential abuse of the H-1B visa program in higher education.
DeSantis urged public universities to prioritize hiring U.S. graduates and to ensure that federal-funded schools are not being used “to import cheap foreign labor,” according to an Oct. 29, 2025, statement.
“Universities across the country are importing foreign workers on H-1B visas instead of hiring Americans who are qualified and available to do the job,” DeSantis said at the time. “We will not tolerate H-1B abuse in Florida institutions. That’s why I have directed the Florida Board of Governors to end this practice.”
The H-1B visa program allows companies to temporarily employ foreign workers for jobs that require “the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent in the specific specialty,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The number of foreign workers eligible for H-1B status is capped at 65,000 annually, with another 20,000 visas for those holding advanced degrees, the department has said.
More than 600 beneficiaries were approved for H-1B visas by the 12 Florida schools last year, according to data released by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The proclamation states that the visa program was designed to bring in foreign workers on a temporary basis “to perform additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
“The severe harms that the large-scale abuse of this program has inflicted on our economic and national security demands an immediate response,” Trump wrote in the proclamation.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the six-figure fee would apply to only new visa applications, not to renewals or current visa holders.
“Those who already hold H-1B visas and are currently outside of the country right now will NOT be charged $100,000 to re-enter,” Leavitt said in a Sept. 20, 2025, post on social media.
