Vice President JD Vance has backed the Trump administration’s move to revamp the H-1B visa system, arguing that the program has strayed from its intent and is now often used to undercut American workers.
Speaking at a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi on Wednesday, Vance said the administration’s reforms are designed to restore the program’s integrity by prioritizing fairness for U.S. employees while still allowing access to truly exceptional foreign talent.
“Legal immigration is complicated because we let in about a million legal immigrants into the United States of America every single year. And the evidence is pretty clear that a lot of those immigrants are actually undercutting the wages of American workers,” Vance said.
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“It’s one of the reasons why the President of the United States and a lot of us in the administration have encouraged H-1B reform,” he added.
Vance’s comments come as debate intensifies over President Donald Trump’s new H-1B reform order, which dramatically raises application costs. The directive introduces a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa filings, up from the previous rate of roughly $1,500.
According to the U.S. State Department, the increased fee will apply to new petitions and entries in the 2026 H-1B lottery, while existing visa holders and previously submitted applications will not be impacted.
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Clarifying the purpose of the H-1B visa, Vance said it was originally meant for “super geniuses,” highly skilled individuals educated in the U.S. who could drive innovation and strengthen the country’s competitiveness. He emphasized that the program was never intended to replace American workers but to attract exceptional talent that benefits the nation’s economy.
“If you look at the H-1B visa, what it’s supposed to be is that you have a super genius who’s studying at an American university and who’s working at a great company. You want that super genius to stay in the United States of America and not go somewhere else. What it’s actually used to do is hire an accountant at a 50 per cent discount for an American citizen,” he said.
Vance added that one of the administration’s broader objectives is to reduce overall immigration, pointing to its strain on jobs and public resources. “There are people who want to come to the United States of America, and some of them, I’m sure, can enrich the United States of America by coming here, but we have got to get our overall numbers way down. Too many people have come into the United States of America,” he said.
His remarks align with the administration’s wider push to scale back both legal and illegal immigration and refocus visa programs to protect opportunities for American workers.