Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announced Wednesday that he has directed the Florida Board of Governors to “pull the plug” on the use of H-1B visas to fill jobs at public universities in his state.
“I am directing today, the Florida Board of Governors, to pull the plug on the use of these H-1B visas in our universities,” DeSantis announced Wednesday.
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“We can do it with our residents in Florida or with Americans — and if we can’t do it, then, man, we need to really look deeply [at] what is going on with this situation,” the Florida governor added.
DeSantis also revealed the H-1B audits found that universities have been bringing in Chinese nationals on visas to talk to students about “public policy,” among other issues.
The governor listed a few examples of positions filled by H-1B visa holders at state universities, including a public policy professor from China, an assistant swim coach from Spain, and an athletic department graphic designer from Canada.
DeSantis also said the program is meant to recruit top talent and wrongly take jobs away from Floridians, according to a report by Orlando Sentinel.
Nearly 400 employees from foreign countries currently work at Florida public universities as a result of the H-1B visa program, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The University of Florida — where DeSantis made his remarks — is reportedly among the state’s leading users of the H-1B program with more than 150 staff members on the visas.
“Congress created the H1B & visa programs to let migrants (& their progeny) climb a 100-foot ladder from poverty to the US middle-class. But migrants must buy the rungs from C-Suite suits & migrant middlemen with wages taken from Americans,” Breitbart News editor Neil Munro said in an X post on Wednesday.
In other words, this means “infinite lies, scams, and betrayals,” Munro added.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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