GOP Lawmaker Proposes Nuking Controversial Visa Program Entirely

One Republican lawmaker wants the controversial H-1B visa program to be gone for good.

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced the Ending Exploitative Imported Labor Exemptions (EXILE) Act, which would change the Immigration and Nationality Act to no longer include the visa type, which the Republican argues will help the American workforce.

“Prioritizing foreign labor over the well-being and prosperity of American citizens undermines our values and national interests,” Steube said in a statement.

“Our workers and young people continue to be displaced and disenfranchised by the H-1B visa program that awards corporations and foreign competitors at the expense of our workforce. We cannot preserve the American dream for our children while forfeiting their share to non-citizens. That is why I am introducing the EXILE Act to put working Americans first again,” he continued. The congressman pointed out that the vast majority of H-1B visas are doled out to citizens of India and China.

The H-1B visa program allows people to work in the United States for a “specialty occupation,” and it’s capped at 65,000 visas annually with another 20,000 for people with high levels of college education, like a master’s degree.

The Trump administration has already made sweeping changes to the program, including imposing a $100,000 fee for the visa petition in many circumstances, as well as a rule changing how the visas are granted to ensure that more “higher-skilled and higher-paid aliens” will be given them.

“The existing random selection process of H-1B registrations was exploited and abused by U.S. employers who were primarily seeking to import foreign workers at lower wages than they would pay American workers,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser in a December statement regarding the rule.

“The new weighted selection will better serve Congress’ intent for the H-1B program and strengthen America’s competitiveness by incentivizing American employers to petition for higher-paid, higher-skilled foreign workers. With these regulatory changes and others in the future, we will continue to update the H-1B program to help American businesses without allowing the abuse that was harming American workers,” he continued.

Criticism of the H-1B visa program is not exclusive to the Right, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has also been a proponent of reform over labor concerns.

“The primary purpose of H-1B and other guest worker programs is not to employ the ‘best and the brightest,’ but instead to replace American workers with lower-paid workers from abroad who often live as indentured servants,” Sanders wrote in a Fox News op-ed last year.

“Not only is this program disastrous for American workers, it can be very harmful to guest workers as well, who are often locked into lower-paying jobs and can have their visas taken away from them by their corporate bosses if they complain about dangerous, unfair or illegal working conditions,” he added.