The heated debate over H-1B visa workers obscures the far greater inflows of other foreign workers into the white-collar jobs needed by American college graduates.
The federal government issues about 130,000 new H-1B visas each year — plus another 650,000 visas or work permits to other white-collar migrants each year.
Many of these non-immigrant workers are allowed to stay for five, six, or seven years. The multi-year visas create a resident population of at least 1.5 million white-collar workers.
That growing population is almost twenty times larger than the H-1B program’s inflow of 85,000 new foreign workers every year that the media is focusing on.
“For decades, this has been out of control,” said Kevin Lynn, the founder of U.S. Tech Workers, which campaigns against the visa worker programs.
The huge giveaway annually delivers roughly two foreign workers for every American who graduates from a four-year college with a skilled degree in science, software, computers, business, healthcare, or engineering.
The programs also deliver two foreign workers into the career-starting jobs needed by every young American who graduates with a four-year degree in “STEM,” or science, technology, engineering, and math.
The migrants are not legal immigrants. They are government-approved contract workers or just-graduated foreign students, and their vulnerable legal status allows employers to treat them badly and undercut pay for American graduates.
“There are about a million work-visa issuances a year … it’s gone up about 25 percent in recent years,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies.
The programs’ complexity and lack of transparency are intended to help employers smuggle more white-collar workers into American jobs, Vaughan said.
President Joe Biden’s deputies are trying to raise the visa-worker inflow. On December 17, the Department of Homeland Security announced:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced a final rule that will significantly enhance U.S. companies’ ability to fill job vacancies [with H-1B workers] …
“American businesses rely on the H-1B visa program for the recruitment of highly-skilled talent, benefitting communities across the country,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “These improvements to the program provide employers with greater flexibility to hire global talent, boost our economic competitiveness, and allow highly skilled workers to continue to advance American innovation.”
Population Numbers
The federal government allows employers to import roughly 450,000 visa workers for the blue-collar H-2A and H-2B workers, and perhaps 150,000 pink-collar visa workers via the J-1 program.
But the white-collar inflow is larger.
The H-1B program is getting much attention, partly because Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other West Coast investors triggered a heated Twitter debate with President Donald Trump’s voter base.
But the H-1B program is just one of many government pipelines that deliver foreign college graduates into the valuable U.S. careers needed by the American middle class.
Each year, the H-1B program delivers roughly 130,000 new workers, including 85,000 workers for private companies. They can stay for six years or longer.
“The resident population of people with H-1Bs is [roughly] 600,000,” Vaughan told Breitbart News.
There is no requirement to offer the H-1B jobs to Americans. Also, there is no limit on the inflow of H-1B workers for non-profits. That loophole has created a new style of non-profit staffing organization that transfers college graduates into private sector jobs.
More than half of the H-1Bs are from India, where the government pressures American companies to hire Indian graduates, even though they are rooted in a culture where workplace corruption and bribes are common.
Deputies working for President Barack Obama also allowed the spouses of H-1Bs to get work permits, dubbed H4EADs. Many now work in jobs alongside their spouses, adding at least 100,000 more white-collar visa workers to the U.S. labor market.
The little-known L-1 visa program allows foreign companies to move their employees into the United States for five to 7 years. In 2022, the Department of State approved 73,000 new L-1s, so the resident white-collar L-1 population is roughly 200,000 white-collar workers.
The spouses of L-1 workers are also allowed to work, adding another 40,000 workers to the workforce, according to a 2017 report by the left-wing Economic Policy Institute.
Many of the H-1B and L-1 workers are allowed to stay past their visa expiry date if their employers offer them the deferred bonus of a government-provided green card. This bonus has created a population of roughly 600,000 Indian workers who are working while waiting for a green card. This population includes many L-1s and H-1Bs, complicating the population count.
The State Department’s J-1 program delivers about 90,000 white-collar workers via multiple categories, such as “short-term scholars, “research scholars,” and professors, who are allowed to stay up to five or even seven years. Government agencies do not reveal the resident population of J-1s, but 300,000 white-collar employees is a reasonable estimate.
The 0-1A so-called “genius visa” program is now delivering at least 9,000 white-collar workers per year, up from 6,500 in 2019. This program is uncapped, like the L-1, TN, and H-1B programs. This visa lasts for three years, so the resident 0-1A population is roughly 25,000.
The TN program allows professionals and recent graduates in Canada and Mexico to get jobs in the United States via the TN visa created by trade treaties. Government officials have said they do not count TN migrants entering the United States from Canada. Vaughan said she estimates the resident TN population to be roughly 120,000 foreign graduates.
The OPT and CPT programs were created for foreign students at American universities. These programs deliver the most new workers each year — but they can only stay for one or three years. Almost 340,000 students and graduates got work permits in 2023, suggesting the resident population is roughly 400,000, most of whom work in technology-related jobs.
The OPT — Optional Practical Training — and the CPT — Curricular Practical Training — programs were not created by Congress but by officials working for President George W. Bush.
The CPT and OPT programs are touted as study programs, but the OPT program is a pipeline for foreigners to get green cards via employers and the H-1B program. These pipelines often run through ethnic hiring networks at Fortune 500 companies or their vast network of “software sweatshops” that implement outsourcing policies at nearly all major U.S. companies.
Many of the OPT and CPT workers fail to get into the H-1B programs and so join the growing population of “overstay” illegal white-collar migrants, many of whom work alongside their legal compatriots as software subcontractors.
This illegal white-collar foreign workforce is also boosted by a growing population of airport migrants. They legally enter the country as tourists or “business visitors,” dubbed B-1/B-2 visas. But they illegally work as freelancers and contractors, usually within ethnic networks of legal migrants. The federal government has done little to suppress or count this population.
There has been no cap on the number of white-collar illegal migrants during Biden’s administration, in part because his pro-migration border chief — Alejandro Mayorkas — enforced a policy of no arrests for migrants who were not found guilty of major crimes.
In addition, Mayorkas has imported roughly one million migrants through his quasi-legal “parole pipelines.” This inflow includes many white-collar workers — but their unrecognized credentials exclude them from licensed professions.
Vaughan suggested these various pipelines have delivered 3 million illegal white-collar workers into the U.S. labor force, alongside the legal population of 1.5 million visa workers.
Lynn estimated the illegal white-collar population at roughly 1.5 million, alongside 1.5 million legal migrants.
In December, Mayrokas announced he would loosen the J-1 program to help migrants from China and India stay in J-1 white-collar jobs for longer than two years.
Mayorkas’ deputies also announced changes to the H-1B program to help American companies import more white-collar workers. The new rules allow more companies to be treated as non-profits so they can import an unlimited number of “cap-exempt” H-1B workers for jobs that are sought by Americans.
The rule states:
Specifically, through this rulemaking, DHS is changing the definition of “nonprofit research organization” and “governmental research organization” by replacing the terms “primarily engaged” and “primary mission” with “fundamental activity” to permit nonprofit entities or governmental research organizations that conduct research as a fundamental activity, but are not primarily engaged in research or where research is not a primary mission, to meet the definition of a nonprofit research entity or governmental research organization for purposes of establishing exemption from the annual statutory limit on H-1B visas.
Additionally, DHS is revising the regulations to recognize that certain beneficiaries may qualify for H-1B cap exemption when they are not directly employed by a qualifying organization, but still spend at least half of their time providing essential work that supports or advances a fundamental purpose, mission, objective, or function of the qualifying organization.
Meanwhile, huge numbers of American professionals are being laid off, according to a December report by Forbes:
Professional and business services, encompassing roles like accountants, consultants, and legal workers, have faced significant layoffs in 2024. These roles accounted for 3.7 million of the nearly 14.9 million layoffs nationwide through the year’s first nine months, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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