I did my first H-1B visa interview as a consular officer in India 25 years ago, and saw from the start that something was seriously wrong with this program. I just published a report on H-1Bs, and this week I have one panel of experts to discuss the visa at the Heritage Foundation.
Our Consensus: The H-1B visa has seriously deviated from its original intent and needs significant reform to put American workers first.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the H-1B was intended to bring “specialty occupation” workers to America “to assist employers who otherwise cannot obtain the necessary business skills and capabilities from the U.S. workforce.” But employers don’t have to prove that they can’t find qualified Americans — or even that they bothered to look.
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And while there were some clearly exceptional talents among the hundreds, if not thousands, of visa applicants I interviewed in my career, most were average college graduate workers.
Most H-1Bs are paid below the average salary for the jobs they do. Why would employers pay them lower wages than Americans if they were truly exceptional?
As our panelists Amanda Bartolotta, Ron Hira, Mark Krikorian, and Kevin Lynne explained, there is no real shortage of talent or STEM qualifications in America. It is true that failures in many of our educational institutions can lead to poor integration into the labor market. For example, new college graduates are unemployed at twice the national rate, while the Ford Motor Company is looking to hire 5,000 mechanics at $120,000 a year. But we can tackle that without sidelining Americans and importing foreign workers en masse.
Nowadays, AI hangs over our labor market like a wrecking ball. No one knows which jobs will remain. Given all this uncertainty, why should we prioritize foreign job seekers over Americans?
A Chinese or Indian student goes to free or low-cost schools in their country compared to the US. They can earn a BA, MA, or even a PhD with little debt. Meanwhile, Americans are borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars to reach the same level. They cannot hire jobs at the same low salaries as their H-1B competitors. By making mid-level labor compete with ours on unfair terms, we discourage Americans from studying areas of high demand.
And we also allow American companies to remain addicted to the drug of cheaper labor.
Amazon received more than 10,000 approvals for H-1B visas in 2025, the same year they announced more than 30,000 job cuts. Has there been any effort to retrain or reassign Americans? Many other major American companies follow the same pattern: hire abroad, fire at home.
The truth is that the number of truly “specialized” workers that even large American companies really need should fit on a bus, not a stadium. And they must be prepared to pay a high premium for it.
If AI companies are really willing to pay up to a hundred million dollars in signing bonuses for top talent, they will be willing to pay high salaries to recruit a few essential foreign workers.
Some in Washington want to increase visas for foreign workers. Some even believe that Americans should compete with the world for their jobs. Not me.
For thirty years, Congress has tinkered around the edges of the H-1B program in a reckless attempt to protect American workers. They failed. H-1Bs are routinely used to replace American workers, and as our experts recently showed, that was by design, not by accident.
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Opponents of H-1B reform are circling the wagons. They form a broad and powerful coalition that transcends party lines. Their goal is to divide and conquer opposition to any loopholes that allow imported labor to compete on unfair terms with American graduates and workers.
But conservatives also have a coalition. We may have little in common with Senator Bernie Sanders, but he also wants to provide jobs for young people at home. With a little support from the pro-labor left, it is possible to get a major reform package through Congress to reduce the massive importation of labor.
But we have to be realistic. To keep the technology and industrial right on board, there must remain a limited and dedicated channel through which corporate America can bring in a few exceptional temporary workers. Strict limits, high qualifications and control must all come with it.
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We must keep the American Dream alive and create opportunities for everyone here at home. Otherwise, socialists will make their eternal, tempting but empty promises and lure the young into apathy, aimlessness and resentment – and not prosperity and hope.
We have a unique opportunity to make important changes and put American graduates and workers first. The time to prioritize opportunity for Americans has come. Let’s finish it.
