Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said H-1B is a scam and only Indians are hired in this visa program.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, known for his anti-H-1B stance, called out the visa program once again and termed it a ‘scam’ and ‘cottage industry’. Targeting India, the Republican leader said most of the H-1B workers are from one country, India. “Most of them (H-1Bs) are from one country, India, there’s a cottage industry about how all those people make money off this system,” Ron DeSantis said, accusing American companies of laying off Americans in favor of cheap H-1Bs. “With AI displacing young workers, why import more foreign labor instead of protecting our own?” DeSantis said.The comment came as India and the US are locked in a bitter battle of tariffs, with the US imposing a 50 per cent tariff on India. The tariff conflict has cast a shadow on the H-1B visa program, which allows US companies to hire high-skilled employees from overseas. Republican leaders are speaking out against the program and urging the Donald Trump administration to scrap the H-1B program.The Donald Trump administration is planning to bring in a massive shift in the H-1B program, replacing the lottery system with a wage-based one in which entry-level posts will not be open for overseas hiring and companies will be allowed only to hire top positions from foreign countries. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also commented on H-1B and sounded the death knell for the program as he wrote: “Hiring American workers should be the priority of all great American businesses. Now is the time to hire American.”“The current H1B visa system is a scam that lets foreign workers fill American job opportunities,” Lutnick wrote. “I am involved in changing the H1B programme because that is terrible. We are going to change the green card. The average American makes $75,000 a year, and the average green card recipient $66,000. So, we are taking the bottom quartile. Why are we doing that? That’s what Donald Trump is going to change. That’s the gold card that’s coming. We are going to start picking the best people to come into the country,” he said.
