Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is calling for a temporary pause on the H-1B migration program amid growing recognition that it is being used to push free-speaking American professionals out of white-collar careers.
“Let’s pause the H1B program,” Lee tweeted amid a growing number of reports about the replacement of American graduates and the displacement of Americans in California, New Jersey, and Texas.
Lee is the latest addition to the growing number of GOP politicians who are talking about the damage that legalized migration actually does to middle-class Americans.
“We have an illegal and legal immigration problem in this country,” Sen. Eric Schmidt (R-MO) said on March 16. “The H-1B & OPT programs are being used to displace American workers and students by incentivizing American employers & institutions to import foreign labor. We need reform now.”
Lee posted his tweet shortly after retweeting a post from Texas suggesting fraud by one of the many Indian-run companies that import H-1B visa workers from India for lease to other Indian-run subcontracting companies.
Many independent journalists are using federal data to spotlight the massive inflow of Indian visa workers into small towns throughout Texas. They are being imported for subcontracting jobs serving the many Fortune 500 companies that have moved operations to Texas — even though there is a rising unemployment rate among American graduates. Also, many of the Indian visa workers are subsequently moved with their US jobs — and with improving AI software — back to India.
In contrast, reporters and editors in the establishment media are unable to admit the link between the rising unemployment rate among U.S. college grads and the huge population of visa workers.
Lee’s statement is especially notable because he led an effort in 2019 and 2020 to accelerate the inflow of Indian jobseekers during Trump’s first term in office. Sources told Breitbart News that Utah’s top political leadership forced Lee to support the bill because Utah’s real-estate industry wanted to attract more Indian companies to the state.
His push was blocked by pro-American groups and staffers, including Stephen Miller.
The H-1B program brings in roughly 150,000 new workers every year, including roughly 35,000 spouses who have H4EAD work permits. These workers undercut skilled American graduates because many accept very low wages in the hope of later getting the big prize — legal status in the United States. Roughly one million H-1B workers now hold jobs in the U.S. white-collar sector.
The huge number of H-1Bs also obscures a similar population of foreign workers enrolled in the J-1, O-1, L-1, L-2, TN, “Optional Practical Training,” and “Curricular Practical Training” programs.
In turn, the inflow of legalized immigrants also pulls in many illegal workers for jobs in shops, hotels, and transport companies. The migrants tend to congregate together in Indian-dominated enclaves, such as Argyle, Texas.
Many foreign-born managers prefer to hire foreign graduate workers, partly because of ethnic favoritism, but also because many foreign workers are willing to buy Americans’ jobs with kickback payments to hiring managers. So far, the federal government has done little to stop the widespread national discrimination against white-collar Americans in the Fortune 500.
President Donald Trump has not blocked the inflow of white-collar migrants but has allowed his deputies to enforce some laws and curb some of the many forms of fraud.
The result is a massive spike in the number of Indians moving into the United States via legalized migration channels. The inflow is creating Indian enclaves in many states, including New Jersey, California, and Texas, and is also driving up housing costs and cutting salaries for white-collar Americans. The economic pressure is also delaying couples’ marriages and childbirths.
Polls show that white-collar Americans are increasingly aware of and opposed to the visa-worker programs.
But opponents are not yet organized — and business interests are working with some D.C. politicians to accelerate the inflow of white-collar migrants despite the likely electoral damage in November 2026.
Reps. Maria Salazar (R-FL) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) are also trying to make it easier to import medical workers via the H-1B program. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) wants to import more visa workers to offset federal spending, and Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) wants to protect the White House program that annually grants work permits to at least 300,000 foreign graduates of U.S. colleges.
The inflow is so large and unpopular that Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost his seat to Steve Toth, a state representative who has criticized the inflow of corporate migrants. In February, Toth said:
We’ve got to do a complete rewrite of H-1B visas … Kids are graduating from school with record amounts of debt and they go into the job pool and compete with people that have H-1B visas and are willing to work for half [the salaries]. It perverts the [labor] market and that’s got to stop.
“We bring a million people into the United States every year,” he added.
In contrast, Crenshaw repeatedly defended the corporate migration into his home district, even as minor curbs were set by Gov. Greg Abbott and state Attorney General Ken Paxton launched investigations into corporate hiring of H-1Bs.
A growing number of House members are also pushing for reforms. That group includes Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN), who wants to help young Americans by curbing the visa programs:
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