President Trump issued a new executive order aimed at curbing H-1B visa abuse and protecting American workers. The order requires executive departments and agencies to screen companies applying for H-1B visas to see if they engaged in layoffs prior to applying.

This order comes as a response to corporate America’s unhealthy habit of hiring thousands of H-1B visa workers after firing their American employees. Statistics showed that corporations laid off between 800,000 and 1.3 million American workers while hiring about 700,000 H-1Bs between 2022 and 2026. 

The Trump administration’s desire to correct the out-of-control H-1B program is laudable. However, the damage caused by H-1B abuse cannot be fully rectified until the entire H-1B program is abolished. Increasing government scrutiny of H-1B employers is a step in the right direction, but unscrupulous employers will eventually find other means to replace American workers, whether through contractors or even other visa programs.

Many of our large corporations are so addicted to cheap foreign labor that they will continue to hamper Trump’s fight against H-1B abuse.

Employers can simply create shell entities to hide their H-1B hires or claim they are “independent contractors.” Simply put, the only permanent solution to this issue is a complete overhaul of how our legal immigration system operates.

The H-1B visa program was created under immense industry pressure based on scare tactics about shortages of American STEM workers, but the underlying concern was always about the salaries that domestic workers in these high-skilled industries would command absent an influx in foreign labor from regions of the world used to a lower standard of living.

Texans for Strong Borders commends this action by the Trump administration as a step in the right direction, but we emphasize that the only true solution to these issues is a complete overhaul of our immigration system to prioritize opportunities for American workers. This includes an end to the H-1B, OPT, and CPT programs displacing our most skilled workers and a net migration moratorium that prioritizes workers with truly irreplaceable skills and high cultural compatibility rather than entry-level or mid-career workers at a discount.