US President Donald Trump recently announced the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications. Soon after the announcement, the White House issued a fact sheet to defend the move, citing “widespread program abuse” and American job losses. The fee, which applies to all new petitions filed from outside the US, is intended to discourage companies from replacing American workers with lower-paid foreign labour. The White House claimed that several US companies have laid off American tech workers while hiring foreign employees through the visa program. The fact sheet stated that one company received 5,189 H-1B visa approvals while laying off 16,000 U.S. workers, and another received 1,698 approvals while cutting 2,400 jobs.
What White House said about H-1B visa workers replacing Americans
In the fact sheet, the White House wrote: “American workers are being replaced with lower-paid foreign labor, creating an economic and national security threat to the nation. The share of IT workers with H-1B visas has risen from 32% in FY 2003 to over 65% in recent years.Unemployment among recent computer science graduates has reached 6.1% and 7.5% for computer engineering graduates — more than double the rates for biology or art history majors. The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, while overall STEM employment only increased 44.5% during that time.American companies are laying off their American technology workers and seemingly replacing them with H-1B workers:
- One company was approved for 5,189 H-1B workers in FY 2025, while laying off roughly 16,000 U.S. employees this year.
- Another company was approved for 1,698 H-1B workers in FY 2025, yet announced it was laying off 2,400 U.S. workers in Oregon in July.
- A third company has reduced its U.S. workforce by 27,000 since 2022 while receiving 25,075 H-1B approvals.
- Yet another company reportedly cut 1,000 American jobs in February despite receiving 1,137 H-1B approvals for FY 2025.
American IT workers have even been reportedly forced to train their foreign replacements under nondisclosure agreements. The H-1B program is creating disincentives for future American workers to choose STEM careers, which threatens our national security.President Trump is imposing higher costs on companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to address the abuse of the program, stop the undercutting of wages, and protect our national security.Voters gave President Trump a resounding mandate to put American workers first, and he has worked every day to deliver on that commitment.President Trump has aggressively and successfully negotiated new trade deals to bring manufacturing jobs back home and attract new investments to the US.President Trump is using tariffs as a strategic tool to rebuild American manufacturing, secure our supply chains, and protect U.S. national security.President Trump has implemented several Section 232 tariffs to protect manufacturing that has been undermined by unfair trade practices and global excess capacity.Since President Trump returned to office, all employment gains have gone to American-born workers—unlike last year during the same period under President Biden, when all employment gains went to foreign-born workers.The Trump Administration issued new guidance to ensure illegal aliens are not allowed access to federal workforce development resources and related grants, protecting job training for American workers.”
