College Grads Hurt by H-1B Visas

The Phyllis Schlafly Report
By John and Andy Schlafly

There is a grim unemployment crisis for college graduates who majored in STEM – science, technology, engineering or math. An estimated 8% of recent STEM graduates are completely unemployed, which is double the national unemployment rate.

This is amid a high-tech boom producing billionaires nearly as often as coffee cups. Only a few hundred thousand American STEM graduates want a job in their field, and it should not be so difficult to make good jobs available to them.

Foreigners coming in on H-1B visas are being hired rather than Americans for many entry-level STEM jobs. There is supposed to be high growth in AI software development, but Big Tech has filled this field with H-1B foreigners, too.

The National Foundation for American Policy found that more than 80% of new H-1B applications and filings by Amazon, Apple, Facebook (Meta), Google, and Microsoft are for foreign workers to fill American jobs in AI and software development, and data science jobs.

Big Tech prefers H-1B visas because the workers become bound to the employer by the program and can then be paid less while prevented from switching to a competitor. If the visa holders want to quit to work for a rival, then they would typically lose their right to remain in the United States and could be deported.

The net result is that everyone is harmed by the H-1B program except the owners and executives of a few Big Tech companies, and the foreigners who steal the good jobs. American workers lose access to jobs taken by H-1B workers, American consumers are harmed by this interference with better competition that often results from job mobility, and entire communities are taken over by foreigners brought in on visas.

On Monday, federal Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston invalidated Trump’s long overdue reform of the H-1B visa system, by which Trump last year imposed a $100,000 surcharge on new visa applications. Liberals have been filing many of their anti-Trump lawsuits in Boston because that is now the most Democrat-appointed judicial venue in our country, reinforced by the nearly all-Democrat First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Sorokin relied on the Supreme Court decision invalidating many of Trump’s tariffs by viewing them as taxes that needed to be considered first by Congress. “These federal judges are really giving us a hard time,” observed Trump.

“Between 2022 and 2023, the top companies using the H-1B program laid off 85,000 American workers, while simultaneously bringing in over 34,000 guest workers from abroad,” Sen. Bernie Sanders stated in a press release last year. He sought “to substantially increase the guest worker fees large corporations pay,” which Trump did but the federal judge in Sanders’ backyard struck it down.

Sen. Sanders claims that he’s opposed the harmful H-1B visas since his “first days as a U.S. senator,” but Phyllis Schlafly opposed this racket years before that. She wrote against H-1B visas in 2003 because they “allow corporations to displace U.S. citizens with skilled labor imported from foreign countries.”

Phyllis urged congressional Republicans to block renewal of the H-1B visa program back then. But politicians in D.C. caved to the lobbyists and voted to continue this harmful program.

The stunning upset last Tuesday in Iowa should send shock waves through every Establishment politician. Their favored candidate was Randy Feenstra, who did not even bother to participate in the debates with his primary opponents.

But Zach Lahn (pronounced Lane) seemingly came out of nowhere to win with a campaign ad promising to ban state government and universities from employing H-1B visa holders. He vowed to require disclosure in state contracts of how many Iowans would be hired, which he pointed out would “be inversely correlated to how many H-1Bs you have.”

“I reject the idea that our people won’t do these jobs,” Lahn said in criticism of the H-1B program. “We have some of the most hardworking kids in the country. I want to be hiring those Iowans here, that’s why we need to bring our kids back home, and that’s what we’ll be fighting for as governor.”

Texans are in an uproar over the H-1B program, as the fast-growing boomtown of Frisco, an hour’s drive north of Dallas, is being overrun by foreigners, many of whom arrived on worker visa programs. The enrollment by Asians is 44% of the Frisco Independent School District (FISD), and one-fifth of the town is Indian now.

There is a shortage of medical residency spots in the United States such that roughly 8,000 American medical school graduates are unable to find a place in a residency program, which is required to become a practicing physician. Yet 10,000 physicians working in the U.S., including some medical residents, are foreigners here on H-1B visas.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.

These columns are also posted on PhyllisSchlafly.com, pseagles.com, and Townhall.com.