Vice President JD Vance is urging young Americans to lobby politicians against visa worker programs, including the H-1B program that helps managers trade Americans’ jobs to kickback-paying foreign graduates.
“You have a Senate primary going on right now,” he told students at the University of Georgia on Tuesday:
Every single one of you should ask those Senate candidates: What do you think about the H-1B visa? Would you co-sponsor the Vice President’s —and former Senator’s — legislation to eliminate that program because it’s basically just something that big tech companies take advantage of? These are the things that you guys have to do, because I can’t keep these politicians honest by myself, I need your help. It’s a very big job.
Vance’s comment reflects the growing public recognition that the various visa programs are pushing many American graduates away from white-collar careers.
The visa programs — such as the H-1B and Optional Practical Training program — keep roughly 2 million foreign graduates in U.S. white-collar jobs. That huge workforce exists even though many young American graduates are being sidelined by the ruthless combination of Artificial Intelligence, the global black-market trade in U.S. white-collar jobs, and the investor pressure to transfer more U.S. jobs to cheaper foreign locations, such as India.
“When you guys graduate from this university, I don’t want you competing against a low-wage foreigner for your first job,” Vance said, adding:
I want a company to have to pay you a fair wage for a fair day’s work. It’s common sense. But to do that, you really have to do reform of the H-1B and other… visa systems.
Vance said:
One of the first pieces of legislation I sponsored in the United States, and it was effectively to get rid of the H 1B visa because I cared so much about this when I was in the Senate. Yes, it is the case that Congress has not exactly come along there [but] there are far more people who are sponsoring that legislation today than there were 10 years ago. But it’s not nearly enough to get it through.
“There are all of these things that you can do [in the White House]… purely through administrative action,” he said. “But for us to really make this stick… we need Congress to codify this stuff.”
Since January 2025, the administration has almost stopped illegal migration, minimized refugee inflows, sharply reduced legal migration, deported many migrants, and tightened oversight of the many white-collar visa programs. But it has not yet reduced the huge inflow of H-1Bs and OPT workers, nor has it proposed measures — such as data protections — to slow the transfer of U.S. jobs to India and other countries.
Major business and investor groups fiercely defend the visa programs, partly because they can add $50 or $100 to their stock value for every $1 they cut from salary costs.
The issue is bubbling up in GOP primaries.
In Georgia, for example, Rep Mike Collins (R-GA) is criticizing the H-1B program and is leading the GOP primary for the Senate race. In a campaign video, he says:
This [race] is about legal immigration taking away jobs, making life more expensive, and radically changing our country. I mean, think about this: Students are told to “Go to college, study hard, and you’ll get a good job!” just to see companies hire H-1B visa [workers] to fill those holes.
I mean, families can’t afford homes because there are simply too many people here who shouldn’t be. You know the quickest way to bring down costs? Stop endless migration. You want to know the quickest way to give more young Americans out there opportunities? You got it! Stop endless migration.
Democrats and weak Republicans have, I mean, far too long, allowed our jobs, opportunity, [and] culture just to be given away… [We need to] stop the chain migration pipeline and start prioritizing Americans again.
American industry and excellence are not filled with expendable cogs to be replaced by cheaper parts when convenient. We need to invest in our workforce and deliver the young Americans the same opportunities that I had growing up under President Trump.
Elsewhere in Georgia, the leading GOP candidate for governor, Rick Jackson, owns a medical staffing company — Avant Healthcare — that imports foreigners for white-collar jobs in the United States. Under a button titled, “Which visa category will Avant file for me?” his company offers H-1B, EB-3, TN, and EB-2 visas to foreigners who take jobs offered by Avant.