The US H-1B visa policy
“The reason why top tech companies often hire foreign immigrant engineers instead of ‘native’ Americans is not because Americans are inherently deficient in IQ. There is a key reason: culture. If we really want to solve the problem, we have to face the reality: our American culture has long valued mediocrity over excellence, at least since the 1990s. This phenomenon does not start in college, but starts at a young age.”
Recently, American politician and technology entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy posted a long post on the social platform X, which sparked heated discussions. He pointed out that the top American technology companies prefer foreign immigrant engineers to local talents, and attributed the reason to the long-standing American culture of advocating “mediocrity”. He said that this culture starts from childhood and not only affects education but also hinders the United States’ ability to train top engineers. His remarks pointed out that Americans need to face up to their “cultural disadvantages” or they will fall behind China in the global technology competition.
Republican Civil War in H-1B Visa Controversy
Behind Ramaswamy’s remarks is a big discussion about US H-1B visa policy and American immigration culture. The H-1B visa is a key policy used by the United States to attract high-tech foreign talents from around the world, but it has been controversial in recent years. Supporters believe that this policy helps the US technology industry maintain global competitiveness; opponents criticize it for allowing foreign workers to replace local employees and suppressing American employment opportunities.
The controversy is particularly intense within the Republican Party. Ramaswamy and the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, stand on the side of supporting skilled immigration, advocating to give priority to attracting the world’s top talents. Musk bluntly stated that the United States needs the top 0.1% engineers. On the other hand, the opposing camp, such as Trump’s die-hard supporter, American right-wing political activist Laura Loomer, and Trump’s former White House adviser Steve Bannon, demanded the complete cancellation of the H-1B visa, believing that this policy eroded American culture and economy.
Ramaswamy’s long post criticizing the “mediocrity” culture in the United States has a kind of “hate iron but not steel” attitude, defending the fact that big technology companies have to look for high-end talents from abroad. He also advocated that the United States needs to fundamentally change its cultural environment, such as reducing entertainment programs, increasing science competitions and math tutoring, and suggested learning from the practice of immigrant families in the 1990s to limit their children from watching TV programs that “promote mediocrity.”
In response, Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who also comes from an Indian immigrant family, bluntly retorted: “American workers and American culture have done nothing wrong. Go to the border and see for yourself how many people want to be like us. We should prioritize Americans and invest in them, not foreign labor.”
She added on X: “It’s lazy to look abroad for talent when the tech industry needs it. If the tech industry needs labor, it should invest in our own American education system and workforce. We must invest in Americans first, then look elsewhere. Never underestimate American talent and the American spirit.”
Brenden Dilley, a podcast host who supports Trump, also took issue with Ramaswamy, writing: “It’s hilarious how these tech moguls have bluntly stated they know nothing about American culture and yet have the nerve to tell you that you are the problem with America.”
Musk said he is willing to give priority to hiring Americans, but there are not enough top talents in the United States. In a post on Christmas Day, he said: “There are too few super motivated and talented engineers in the United States. If you want your team to win championships, you need to recruit top talent, no matter where they are.” A day later, he reiterated: “I mean introducing the top 0.1% of engineering talent through legal immigration, which is critical to America’s continued victory.”
Musk, who was born in South Africa and was once an H-1B visa holder, has expressed his support for the policy more than once: “I was able to come to the United States, along with the key people who co-founded SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that make America strong, because of the existence of the H-1B visa.”
However, Musk believes that the H-1B policy has many problems and needs major reforms.
Ramaswamy also criticized the H-1B. He said on X: “I have said it countless times in the past two years, and I will say it again: the H-1B system is seriously broken and should be replaced with a system that focuses on selecting the best talent (rather than lottery), supports competition (not being tied to a single company because of the visa), and de-bureaucratizes.”
H-1B Policies and Challenges
The H-1B visa in the United States is a high-tech foreign talent visa that was first issued in 1990. According to immigration policy, the H-1B visa allows American employers to temporarily hire foreign workers to perform professional work when they cannot find qualified American employees. Applicants usually must have at least a bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional work experience and can work in the United States for up to six years with this visa.
Since 2004, the U.S. has capped the number of new H-1B visas at 85,000 per year, with 20,000 reserved for foreign students with a master’s degree or above from a U.S. university. In practice, the number of applications in the U.S. each year far exceeds the cap, so applicants must ultimately be approved through a “lottery.”
For foreign high-end talents, even if their salaries are much higher than the average income in the United States, they face the risk of not being able to stay in the United States for a long time due to the H-1B regulations. At the same time, because the employer is tied to the application, they cannot change jobs as they please. These restrictions are exactly why Ramaswamy criticized the H-1B for being “seriously damaged.”
U.S. high-tech companies are usually the biggest applicants for H-1B visas. According to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the largest number of beneficiaries of H-1B visas approved in 2024 will come from Amazon, with more than 9,000 people, followed by multinational information technology companies Infosys and Cognizant, with about 8,000 and 6,000 people respectively, followed by Google, Microsoft, Apple and other companies.
Musk’s Tesla saw a significant increase in the number of H-1B petitions approved in fiscal year 2024, rising to 16th place on the corporate list. Tesla received 742 H-1B petitions approved for initial employment in fiscal year 2024, more than double the 328 in fiscal year 2023 and 337 in fiscal year 2022.
Tyler Christians, an immigration lawyer in Virginia, has been applying for H-1B visas for his clients since 2012 and has witnessed the policy’s evolution over the years. “Starting around 2013, around 2017 or 2018, the number of people applying for H-1Bs increased significantly, probably 180,000 to 250,000 people per year, which greatly exceeded the 85,000 limit, so a lottery system was introduced, and only those who won the lottery could get an H-1B.”
Christine told VOA: “In the beginning, there was a very complicated application process. You had to fill out a lot of forms, submit a lot of materials, and find a lawyer to help you. The success rate was probably around 20 to 30 percent. But later on, the application process became very easy and could be completed very quickly. Last year, more than 900,000 people applied for H-1B.”
In his opinion, this rapid and simplified but explosive application is the biggest drawback of H-1B. “Some companies apply for thousands of people at once, and some large law firms have also started to specialize in this.” Christine said that the massive number of applications from large companies is very unfair to small companies because it reduces the chances of success for employees of small companies.
Christine believes that the current debate within the Republican Party over the introduction of high-skilled immigrants is a good thing because “discussion on policy is always better than no discussion at all.” However, he believes that no one has hit the point because “many people obviously still don’t understand what the H-1B is all about.”
Realistic observations of international students
Dong Qiang (a pseudonym was used at the request of the interviewee), a Chinese student who successfully applied for an H-1B visa in the United States a few years ago, told VOA, “This system is of course good and must be retained,” but he also observed that there are indeed loopholes that need reform. For example, some outsourcing companies abuse the loophole of multiple applications, which calls the fairness of the policy into question.
“The biggest problem is that there are many shell companies in India, or outsourcing companies, that submit multiple applications for the same person,” he said. “H-1Bs are subject to lottery, and legitimate companies should only submit one application per person. But if you cheat and submit 20 applications, you naturally have a greater chance of being selected. This loophole must be closed, but I heard that the inspections have been stricter recently and the situation has improved a bit.”
Dong Qiang used his own experience to illustrate that relying solely on market mechanisms cannot solve the problem of talent shortage in the United States. His organization is a government agency that studies public transportation and urban planning, not a large enterprise like Amazon or Tesla. “The salary in this industry is definitely not comparable to that of Silicon Valley, which is the level of ordinary college graduates in the United States. However, there are some types of jobs that no Americans want to do. For example, some of our groups are all Indians, or occasionally some Chinese, and Americans don’t want to study this major at all.”
He explained: “Then what should we do? According to the principle of the free market, the salary must be increased a lot to attract American talents. But first of all, there is a time lag problem, and secondly, because this is a government agency, the cost of the increase will ultimately be borne by American taxpayers. But with H-1B, you can let foreigners do it and save taxpayers money. This is an obvious reality. I believe this phenomenon also exists in many other industries.”
Trump’s H-1B policy direction for the next four years
President-elect Trump is currently in favor of H-1B. In an interview with the media, he said: “I have hired many H-1B visa holders in my real estate projects. I have confidence in this policy. I have used it many times. This policy is great.”
However, Trump’s attitude towards the H-1B policy during his first term was not friendly. As early as 2016, Trump tweeted on Twitter, the predecessor of X, that the “only purpose of H-1B is to replace American workers with cheap foreign labor,” and used Disneyland in Florida as a negative example, vowing to “completely cancel” H-1B.
After Trump took office in 2020, he issued Presidential Executive Order No. 10043, which resulted in a large number of Chinese students being denied visas and forced to cancel their plans to study in the United States. The executive order explicitly prohibits Chinese citizens related to China’s military-civilian integration from holding F visas or J visas to enter the United States to pursue relevant graduate degrees and visit for study.
At the same time, the Trump administration introduced strict new regulations to “raise H1-B salary standards and restrict applicants’ majors”, which caused headaches for many technology companies and international students. Although the new regulations were eventually rejected by the court, H1-B applicants still encountered stricter review standards, resulting in a significant increase in the rejection rate.
Christian said he expects that the review of H-1B applications will be more stringent during Trump’s second term in the next four years, but as an immigration lawyer, he welcomes stricter review. “If the threshold for doing something is too low, it will often be a mess, giving cheating opportunities. Stricter review can reduce the possibility of cheating,” he said.
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