Vice President JD Vance has stepped up his criticism of the H-1B visa program, saying he would support eliminating it altogether and accusing some U.S. companies of using the system to replace American workers with lower-paid foreign employees.
In an exclusive interview with Real America’s Voice, Vance argued that the H-1B program has been taken advantage of by companies across industries, including technology and accounting. He also shared a clip from the interview on X, putting his latest comments back in the spotlight as the Trump administration faces growing legal challenges over its H-1B policies.
“Here’s the thing about H-1Bs. My belief on this is the H-1B program has been totally taken advantage of, not just by technology companies, by accounting firms, by people who are basically defrauding the American worker,” Vance said.
He drew a distinction between using the program to bring highly specialized talent into the country and using it to lower a company’s labor costs.
“If you want to say, oh, I’d like to bring a genius into the United States of America, you can have that conversation,” Vance said.
“But if you’re going to bring in an accountant making $45,000 a year to replace an accountant who’s an American making $60,000 a year, that’s not you using the program to bring in a genius. That’s you destroying American jobs and defrauding the American people.”
READ: JD Vance rejects calls to slow AI development, says Americans ‘should not be scared’ (September 15, 2026)
Vance said the Trump administration has taken more action on H-1B visas than any previous administration and pointed to its push for a $100,000 payment for certain H-1B petitions.
He said the idea came after he, President Donald Trump and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller concluded that Congress was unlikely to overhaul the program.
“About a year ago, the president, Stephen Miller, and I, we came up with this idea where, well, Congress was not going to reform the H-1B program because, unfortunately, a lot of people were by the cheap labor lobby,” Vance said.
“But we did come out and say, if you want to apply for an H-1B, you have to submit a $100,000 fee.”
Vance said the administration viewed the fee as a way to discourage employers from using H-1B visas simply as a cheaper alternative to hiring American workers.
“The thinking there was, if you’re just trying to replace an American accountant with a cheaper foreign accountant, then you’re not going to pay $100,000,” he said.
“That’s a lot of money. But the idea, in other words, was to protect, use that fee as a gateway in order to ensure that people actually were using the program for what it was intended for.”
The $100,000 H-1B payment requirement is now facing another legal challenge. A federal judge blocked the measure on Oct. 1, marking the second court ruling against the administration’s attempt to impose the fee. The legal fight adds another complication to the administration’s effort to reshape the H-1B system.
But Vance’s criticism goes beyond the fee itself. He said he believes the entire H-1B system is fundamentally flawed.
“My view is the H-1B program is completely broken, and I’d be very supportive of just eliminating it,” Vance said.
“But while we have it, what we have to do is protect American workers.”
Vance also urged Americans who want changes to the program to pressure their lawmakers.
“So I understand people are annoyed. What I would say is tell your congressman to fix this program,” he said. “Meanwhile, we in the Trump administration are trying to at least make it less fraudulent.”
READ: JD Vance aligns with Elon Musk on H-1B: ‘Enrich the American economy’ (September 16, 2026)
Vance’s comments also revive an issue that has previously put him on similar ground with Elon Musk, one of the most vocal supporters of changes to the H-1B system.
Musk has argued that H-1B visas should be used to bring highly skilled workers into the United States rather than allow companies to use foreign labor primarily because it is cheaper. Vance made a similar argument earlier this month, saying the program should bring in people who can “significantly enrich the tech ecosystem or the American economy” rather than replace an American worker with a lower-paid foreign employee.
The comparison became particularly noticeable after Vance said in an earlier discussion that, if a company lays off thousands of American employees and then seeks H-1B workers, it should not be using the program to replace those workers.
“The H-1B should not exist to replace American workers with low-wage foreigners. It should exist to enrich the American economy,” Vance said.
Vance’s latest comments therefore put the administration’s position in especially stark terms: the H-1B program, as he sees it, should either be fundamentally changed to prioritize highly skilled workers or potentially eliminated altogether.