After two generations of record-breaking immigration, we’re still flooding the labor market with millions of foreign students and visa workers — gutting entire industries and boxing Americans out of their own economy. On what planet does this country need more foreign labor?
Last week, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it had selected 120,141 H-1B visa applicants in its random annual lottery for fiscal year 2026. While the number is slightly lower than during the Biden years, it reflects the same endless pipeline we’ve seen for decades.
So much for putting American workers first.
A shrinking job market
At any given time, roughly 1.5 million white-collar foreign workers operate in this country on a mix of visa categories — H-1B, H4EAD, L-1, J-1, O-1, TN, OPT, and CPT. That doesn’t even count the more than 1 million foreign students or the birthright citizenship granted to their children, despite many of them being here on “temporary” visas.
The real number of new H-1Bs that should be admitted next year? Zero.
If we truly had a shortage of skilled labor, wouldn’t wages be rising? Shouldn’t entry-level pay be going up?
The only reason we allow India to monopolize graduate programs and entire sectors of the tech and medical industries is to suppress wages. Meanwhile, American companies continue to lay off workers while lobbying to import more foreign labor. That contradiction exposes the lie.
Last September, the Wall Street Journal described what young tech workers now face.
Once heavily wooed and fought over by companies, tech talent is now wrestling for scarcer positions. The stark reversal of fortunes for a group long in the driver’s seat signals more than temporary discomfort. It’s a reset …
Job postings for software developers are down more than 30% since February 2020, according to Indeed. Layoffs in tech have continued into this year, with around 137,000 jobs eliminated since January, per Layoffs.fyi. Many workers — especially younger ones — are experiencing their first taste of a shrinking job market.
And yet the foreign labor machine rolls on.
If we truly had a shortage of skilled labor, wouldn’t wages be rising? Shouldn’t entry-level pay be going up?
In fact, the opposite is true. The Journal reports that median pay dropped 1% to 2% for software engineers, product designers, and technical managers — precisely the fields dominated by the Indian slave trade, a system of corporate-sponsored indentured labor enabled by the H-1B program.
The wage gap between job-switchers and job-stayers has nearly vanished. Historically, job-changers earned more. Now, thanks to artificially depressed wages and a labor market flooded with visa-bound foreign workers, that advantage has all but disappeared. Wages have nowhere to rise.
Corporations win, workers lose
Federal law technically requires H-1B employers to pay prevailing wages, but enforcement is a joke.
The Center for Immigration Studies found that in 2023, the average salary employers promised new H-1B workers in computer-related fields was 25.2% lower than the average for U.S. software developers.
RELATED: How H-1B visa loopholes are undercutting American wages and jobs
filo via iStock/Getty Images
And what about the claim that these are the “best and brightest” minds from around the world? According to CIS, H-1B workers in tech were paid 41% less than Americans in the 75th percentile and 53% less than those in the 90th percentile.
So much for “high-skilled labor.” The reality is simple: This is about corporate access to cheap, compliant, and easily controlled labor.
Trump can stop this
So why is the Trump administration approving another 120,000 H-1Bs while American tech workers struggle to find jobs?
While courts have limited the administration’s ability to remove those already here, the Supreme Court has ruled that the president has plenary authority under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act to block prospective visa applicants. Section 215(a)(1) gives him similarly broad power to regulate all entries and exits of foreign nationals.
Congress may set the cap — but nothing stops the president from suspending the program entirely in the national interest, as Trump did with the refugee program in his first term.
Here are a few reforms Trump could impose immediately.
End the random lottery: Select applicants based on highest salary offers. If this program is truly about skilled labor, prove it.
Blacklist diploma mills: Deny visa applications from unaccredited or fraudulent institutions.
Reject firms that fire Americans: Companies that lay off U.S. workers shouldn’t receive new batches of foreign replacements.
Terminate the OPT program: Created without congressional approval, OPT allows employers to hire foreign students tax-free for entry-level jobs. Trump can end it with a stroke of the pen.
Cap foreign workers at 10% per company: No corporation should be allowed to replace Americans en masse with foreign labor.
Trump began cracking down on visa abuse late in his first term, but Biden quickly reversed those gains.
Now Trump is back. So what happened to the promise of putting American workers first?
Opinion & analysis, Immigration, Foreign workers, Cheap labors, H-1b visas, Donald trump, Joe biden, Center for immigration studies, Citizenship and immigration services, India, Big tech, Employment, Job switchers, Job stayers, America first, Visa lottery, Birthright citizenship