‘US Citizens Need Not Apply’

Aaron Sibarium is one of the rare journalists who actually does his job.

I’ve mentioned his good work before, and I will once again implore you to follow his work on X. 

I’ve had this piece on the back burner for a few days, but since the subject is not “breaking news” but rather an in-depth look at a chronic problem, I let it sit there until I had a bit of time. 

What Aaron has dug up is an important data point in the debate over H-1B visa policies in the United States—a subject about which there is a lot of heat but far too little light. 

Unlike many conservatives, I am not opposed to the idea behind H-1 B visas in principle. The rationale behind them is sound: if there is a specialty-skill job that requires skills that Americans are unable to fill, employers are empowered to seek foreign employees to fill those jobs on a temporary basis until enough Americans are trained up to fill them. 

For instance, when TSMC builds a high-tech chip manufacturing plant at the cutting edge—they make chips that nobody else can come close to—it would be stupid to keep Taiwanese workers out until Americans can learn how to perform the tasks. It is specialized knowledge and skills that make the manufacturing possible, and since we want our chip industry to flourish it makes sense to import workers to help make it happen. 

Unfortunately, that’s the rationale, not the reality. In fact, many employers will dump Americans in favor of cheaper foreign workers; sometimes, they even require the Americans to train their replacements. 

Federal law bars employers from discriminating based on citizenship status. But in the industries most reliant on the H-1B program, which provides visas to more than 700,000 immigrants, advertisements like LanceSoft’s litter online recruiting boards. pic.twitter.com/NTI3bCzMVi

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) December 5, 2025

Aaron’s investigation details how pervasive the abuse of our visa system is, and how deeply it distorts the American job market. 

The job post for LanceSoft, an IT staffing firm committed to “diversity, equality, and inclusivity,” began innocently enough.

The $60-per-hour role would be based in Santa Clara, Calif., focus on “technical support,” and entail a 3–10 p.m. shift. Posted on Nvoids, an IT jobs aggregator, the ad described LanceSoft as an equal opportunity employer and said that the firm, one of the largest staffing agencies in the country, strives “to be as diverse as the clients and employees we partner with.”

“We embrace people of any race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender identity, and sexual orientation,” the Nov. 25 post read.

This particular job, however, would not be open to a very large group of people: citizens of the United States.

In a section titled “Visa requirement,” LanceSoft recruiter Riyaz Ansari wrote that “candidates must hold an active H1B visa”—and stated explicitly that American citizens need not apply.

“No USC/GC for this role,” Ansari wrote, using the acronyms for U.S. citizens and green card holders. He added that “LanceSoft is a certified Minority Business Enterprise”—a status the firm has used to secure public contracts—and touted the company’s “diversified team environment.”

The case for H-1B visas is simple: if foreign workers can grow the American economy and make us all richer in the process, then we should invite them in. But obviously, that is not what is happening at all in many cases. Because companies can hire foreign workers at cheaper rates and because, in most cases, those workers’ ability to stay in the US depends on remaining with their employers, the incentive for companies to prefer to hire them can be enormous. 

Which employee would you rather have: an indentured servant whose livelihood entirely depends on your goodwill, or one who can bargain and is free to stay or leave? 

Many companies choose the former, for obvious reasons. 

Tldr: Many companies are openly discriminating against US citizens in violation of civil rights law.

Some of those companies are getting special, race-based treatment from US taxpayers, even as they outsource American jobs to foreign visa-holders.

Link: https://t.co/gUae7ONkmD

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) December 5, 2025

It’s obvious why a foreign worker would jump at the chance to work in the United States as opposed to in his home country. Many people in India have useful skills, speak English, and can earn more here than at home. Of course, they jump at the chance to enter the US legally, get in line for citizenship, and be guaranteed a good job at reasonable wages. If I were in their position, I would do so. 

But the H-1B visa program doesn’t exist to help companies import cheap labor at the expense of Americans, but that is what it is doing. 

In theory, the H-1B program lets employers hire high-skilled immigrants when they cannot find qualified U.S. workers. Congress created the program in 1990 to offset predicted labor shortages in tech and medicine—the assumption being that there would not be enough Americans to fill those roles.

But more than three decades later, businesses are hiring H-1B candidates without ever searching for U.S. workers. Critics say the program has become a spigot for cheap foreign labor that allows companies to pay below-market wages while minimizing turnover, since the employer-sponsored visa ties migrants to their jobs. That creates an incentive to hire H-1Bs even when there is no shortage of domestic labor.

Now, some companies are responding to that incentive by restricting certain roles to foreign nationals. And though the Justice Department has fined dozens of employers for discriminating against U.S. citizens—including under the Biden administration—many firms are still posting ads that explicitly exclude Americans.

One recruiter posted on LinkedIn that an IT job in Chicago was open to almost “any visa” but “no USC,” meaning U.S. citizens.

Here’s an example of a good use of the H-1B in my book: a research or materials scientist has specialized skills developed over the years that would help an American company improve its products or efficiency, and should obviously be snapped up by an American company. If someone with particular skills can bring outsize value, then it would be stupid not to hire him, no matter what his nationality. 

Think of the Manhattan Project. Many of the key scientists were Europeans, and their contributions helped America immensely. Or Albert Einstein, whose genius was put to use here because we welcomed him in. 

But their skills and insights were irreplaceable; somebody coding an app, not so much. Americans could fill those jobs in whatever number is needed, and the way to attract them is with higher pay. Easy peasy. 

That’s true for almost all “jobs that Americans won’t do.” Yes, they will. Pay them appropriately, and they will. You may need to provide higher pay and better working conditions than with indentured servants, but the jobs will be filled. 

Unfortunately, if Somalis are the masters at welfare scams, Indians seem to have cornered the market on H-1B abuse. 

Many of these companies are run by Indian nationals, who made up 70 percent of H-1B visa-holders in 2024. Those demographics have allowed some of the firms discriminating against Americans to claim Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) status, a certification that can give them a leg up when bidding for contracts in the United States.

One MBE, Empower Professionals, has posted multiple advertisements since 2024 that appear to explicitly exclude American citizens. Another, Tekgence, posted an ad for a Java developer that said “No USC.”

I happen to think that Indians have been, on the whole, model immigrants who contribute a lot to our country, but that doesn’t excuse the grotesque abuses of a system that exists specifically to benefit the American economy. 

From what I can tell, that abuse is centered on the software industry, where lower-level coding jobs barely qualify as “specialized skills.” These skills are teachable, and if left to itself, the market would adjust to bring in more applicants, as happens in every industry. That’s not a knock against coders; it’s just to say that until you get to the higher levels in the industry, the skills are more generic than specialized. 

Think lab tech versus research scientist. Universities might vie to get the best research scientists while using graduate students as lab techs. The latter do essential work, but you don’t need to scour the world to find people to fill the positions. 

The job posts, which have not been previously reported, are likely to inflame intra-right tensions over the H-1B program. President Donald Trump has argued the program is necessary to bring talent to the United States, a position shared by some of the president’s allies in the tech sector, including Elon Musk. Others, like Missouri senator Eric Schmitt (R.), say it depresses wages and diminishes job opportunities for Americans, citing cases such as a 2015 scandal in which Disney workers were laid off and replaced by H-1B holders.

Some progressives have also cast doubt on the idea that the visa is plugging labor shortages or bringing in the best and brightest: A 2015 analysis by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank with ties to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), found that the two leading employers of H-1B holders, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, use the visa “primarily to cut labor costs.”

While cost-cutting and outsourcing are not unlawful, Lucas, the EEOC chair, said that companies cannot discriminate against U.S. workers even when doing so would save money.

“Many businesses wrongly think that they can justify hiring preferences for H-1B workers or other guest visa workers based on cost savings,” Lucas said. “But in reality, no cost considerations ever justify unlawfully favoring foreign workers over American workers. It is irrelevant whether the disparate treatment based on national origin is motivated by cost versus bias or animus—either way, it is against the law.”

I actually think that preferences for US workers would be justified, all other things being equal. I have no problem with foreigners working in the United States if they pull their weight, but if there is an equally qualified American who could do the job, they should be given preference. 

In my view, H-1B visas are, in principle, a good idea. But they are a good idea, being implemented very poorly. Americans are being pitted against foreigners whom they rightly believe are lowering the value of their work and displacing them in the marketplace, solely because employers can get the foreigners cheaper. 

Most ironic of all is that tech firms should, in principle, be much less cost-sensitive than other types of companies. A grocery store or meatpacking plant works on small margins, but a software company has margins that will make your eyes blink in most cases. 

Americans rightly feel that they are being exploited, and because of that, they are turning against a program that could, if appropriately implemented, make us all wealthier.