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Vice President JD Vance wants to drastically change the H-1B foreign worker visa program in favor of a system that prioritizes American workers rather than the one he says currently displaces members of the domestic workforce.
“So, what are the things we can do administratively to ensure that if a tech company is going to try to get an H-1B visa, it’s an actual genius, it’s a person that is going to significantly enrich the tech ecosystem or the American economy?” Vance asked in a Sept. 15 episode of the “All-In” podcast, hosted by financial gurus Chamath Palihapitiya, Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg — all entrepreneurs and investors.
Vance explained that Congress doesn’t have the “political will” to make significant changes to the visa program, leading to recent executive action on the subject.
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H-1B visas are temporary nonimmigrant programs that allow foreign workers in “specialty occupations,” often referred to as “high-skilled workers,” to come to the United States and work, typically for three years, according to United States Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS). But critics say the program has been abused by large companies, many in the tech industry, to simply replace Americans in the workforce with cheaper labor from abroad.
Many also argue that the visa recipients aren’t better suited than American workers to do the jobs.
Vance said the administration is trying to ensure companies are, “not just replacing one accountant who makes $60,000 with a lower-wage foreign accountant who makes $45,000 a year.”
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“We’re also looking at various ways of preventing companies that use H-1B visas from laying off a bunch of American workers,” said Vance in a clip shared on Sunday that sparked chatter on social media.
“So, one of the things that I find just shocking about this is that you’ll have a company that applies for an H-1B, and they’ll say, ‘oh, we’re desperate for workers, we can’t find the workers,’ and then you go and look at their history and they’ve laid off 5,000 people,” he explained.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced in August a new rule to charge $103,265 to companies as an additional fee for every H-1B petition subject to the annual statutory cap of 65,000 per year.
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A similar proposal from the administration was previously struck down by a federal district court.
“That’s ridiculous,” Vance said of American employers abusing the program to cut labor costs.
“If you’re laying off American workers you shouldn’t be going to the market searching for foreign workers to replace them,” he said. “So, we’re doing a lot, within the confines of course of what we’re allowed to do legally. We’ve gotten sued on some of this stuff. But I think fundamentally, we’re on [sic] the right on both the law and the policy.”
‘The H-1B should not exist to replace American workers with low-wage foreigners. It should exist to enrich the American economy.”
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
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