The Heritage Foundation has stepped into the H-1B visa debate, urging sweeping reforms to America’s skilled immigration system. In a post shared on X, the think tank’s president, Kevin Roberts, amplified the organization’s stance, calling on lawmakers and the administration to tighten and overhaul existing visa policies.
Roberts wrote on X, “Fraud, nepotism, and corruption affect every stage of the H-1B visa process. The program cannot go on in its current form. Putting American workers first is necessary to make the American Dream attainable again.”
The Heritage Foundation’s initial post stated, “The H-1B visa was created more than 30 years ago to fill a perceived temporary labor shortage. Since then, it has ballooned beyond its intended scope and urgently needs to be reduced and drastically reformed to put American workers first.”
Recently, even Indian American scholar Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University and a prominent critic of the H-1B visa system, also spoke at the panel discussion titled “How the H-1B Visa Led to Importing Mass Cheap Labor,” hosted by The Heritage Foundation.
Hira stated, “back then, 20 years ago, it was obvious that H-1B visa abuse was critical in speeding up the offshoring of these jobs. Yet for the past 20 years, Washington has turned a blind eye to this abuse.”
READ: Indian Americans, Indians on H-1B visas confront shifting public perceptions in Trump’s America (November 15, 2025)
The debate over H-1B visas reignited after President Donald Trump appeared on Fox News with host Laura Ingraham in November, where he was pressed on his stance toward high-skilled immigration. During the interview, Trump reiterated that the United States cannot fill certain specialized roles with domestic workers alone, arguing that the country must attract highly skilled professionals from abroad to remain competitive in sectors such as technology, engineering and research.
Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Border and Immigration Center, weighed in with a policy paper outlining proposed changes to the H-1B system. He urged lawmakers to scrap current exemptions granted to universities and nonprofit research institutions, replace the lottery-based selection with a system that prioritizes higher wage offers, and clearly specify that spouses on H-4 visas should not receive work authorization.
“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 wrote in the report.
The Heritage Foundation also offered guidance on potential changes the Trump administration could make to the H-1B program. The report recommends that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should “limit the number of H-1B applicants each company can petition for annually” and also impose a permanent ban on “any company, individual or entity from petitioning or participating in the H1-B process if it knowingly violates immigration law.”