The Heritage Foundation is weighing in on the H1-B debate, calling for Congress and the administration to drastically reform certain U.S. visa policies, the Daily Caller first learned.
The debate over H1-B visas began after President Donald Trump appeared with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in November and was pressed on the policy proposal. Trump argued America needs to import more people because current citizens are not skilled or talented enough to do certain jobs.
Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow for the Border and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, wrote a report on the policy, calling on Congress to eliminate the exemptions for research and nonprofits, replace the H-1B lottery with a wage-based ranking system and expressly state that H-4 visa holders are not authorized to work.
“Rather than this regulatory back and forth swing between administrations, it’s past time for Congress to end not only the numerous types of H-1B abuses, but also the administrative state creations that developed the student-to-H-1B-green-card pipeline that adversely affects American students and employees,” Hankinson writes in the report.
The Heritage Foundation also makes recommendations for how the Trump administration should change the H1-B policy. The report suggests that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should “limit the number of H1-B applicants each company can petition for annually” while also permanently barring “any company, individual or entity from petitioning or participating in the H1-B process if it knowingly violates immigration law.”
U.S. President Donald Trump arrives on the South Lawn of the White House on November 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump visited Joint Base Andrews in Prince Georges County Maryland to tour the golf course located on the base. (Photo by John McDonnell/Getty Images)
The report also calls on the Department of Labor (DOL) to “publish clear, searchable monthly statistics on H-1B petitions, company layoffs, complaints and investigations.” The Department of Justice (DOJ) should, according to the report, “investigate all credible allegations of fraud and abuse of the H-1B program and harm to U.S. workers in violation of the law and publish all prosecutions.”
“To prioritize American students and workers first, the program should be scaled back to its original intent and scope but revised to account for increased salaries, a changed job market, and AI labor disruption,” the report says.
“In cooperation with the DOL and the State Department, [the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] should crack down on abuse of other visa categories that feed into the H-1B system, such as student and visitor visas. The DOJ should investigate and punish fraud throughout the H-1B pipeline to create a credible deterrent to malfeasance and restore integrity to the U.S. immigration system,” it continues.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks alongside Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts during the foundation’s 50th Anniversary Leadership Summit at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center on April 21, 2023 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Trump recently defended his stance on H1-B visas, telling reporters that H1-B workers are needed to help make microchips as the industry moves back to the U.S. (RELATED: DeSantis World Goes To War With H1B Visas As Trump Faces Blowback From Base)
“For instance, if you’re going to be making chips — we don’t make chips too much here anymore, but we are going to be in a period of a year, we’re going to have a big portion of the chip market. But we have to train our people how to make chips, because we didn’t get — we used to do it, and then foolishly, we lost that business to Taiwan, very, very foolishly, because if they had a president that thought like I did, they would not have let that happen,” Trump said. “But it’s all coming back. I think we’re going to have a, within a few years we’re going, and not because of the Chips Act.”
The president said the Chips Act was a disaster for America and gave billions of dollars away to other countries.
“Chip makers are all coming back, and I think within a very short period of time, we’re going to have maybe even the majority of the chip making in the world will be right in the United States, where it should have been all along,” the president added.
“But because we had people that didn’t believe in tariffs — if they believed in them, they didn’t know how to use them — we would have had nobody leaving our country right now, and instead, you have almost 100% of the chips are made in Taiwan. It’s so disgraceful. The good news is it’s all coming back,” he concluded.
Read the full article here
