The Case For Replacing H-1B With An America-First Merit Visa

Is it possible to support legal immigration, champion high-skilled talent, and still demand the abolition of the H-1B visa program? Not only is it possible, it is necessary.

Too often, debates over the H-1B program collapse into caricatures. On one side, critics are accused of xenophobia, as if skepticism of a dysfunctional guest-worker program were a rejection of immigrants themselves. On the other side, supporters insist that any opposition to H-1B is tantamount to economic suicide. Neither claim survives scrutiny. The truth is that H-1B, as currently structured, is not a merit-based system but a corporate subsidy, rife with abuse, distortion, and economic harm to American workers. A new, principled approach to legal high-skill immigration is overdue.

The H-1B program was originally conceived as a mechanism to supplement American labor in areas of genuine skill shortages. It has become something else entirely. Today, it serves as a tool for outsourcing firms to undercut American wages, for multinational corporations to game a lottery system that rewards volume over value, and for middlemen to trap foreign workers in arrangements that resemble indentured servitude more than professional employment. The result is a system that rewards neither merit nor patriotism.

Consider the most egregious abuse: the replacement of American workers with H-1B visa holders. In 2015, Disney made headlines for laying off hundreds of American IT employees, only to force them to train their H-1B replacements as a condition of severance. Southern California Edison did the same. These are not isolated anecdotes. They are the predictable outcomes of a system designed with weak protections for American labor and strong incentives to cut costs through foreign outsourcing. Senator Chuck Grassley rightly observed that the program is used not to fill gaps but to replace Americans with cheaper alternatives.

This would be troubling enough if these foreign workers were at least paid market wages. They are not. The law requires that H-1B workers be paid the “prevailing wage,” but that standard is manipulated through outdated wage scales and watered-down definitions. In practice, most H-1B visas are issued at the lowest allowable pay levels, often at the 17th or 34th percentile of local wages for the same job. According to DHS, more than 85 percent of H-1B approvals fall into these low tiers. Even advanced degree holders are routinely paid below-market salaries. In other words, the program not only displaces Americans but also suppresses wages across entire industries.

Some of the worst offenders are not even American companies. Indian outsourcing firms like Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services have built billion-dollar empires by exploiting the H-1B system. They bring in large numbers of workers, contract them out to US firms, and then offshore the work once the knowledge has been transferred. These firms now dominate H-1B allocations, securing tens of thousands of visas each year. The United States government, far from selecting the best and brightest minds to join its economy and culture, has instead become a pipeline for foreign labor arbitrage.

The lottery system itself is a farce. With minimal oversight and a nominal fee, employers submit hundreds of thousands of registrations each year. In FY2024, USCIS received over 780,000 entries for just 85,000 slots. Worse, many individuals were entered multiple times through different shell companies or affiliated employers, a practice that USCIS admits is often fraudulent. In 2023, over 400,000 lottery entries came from individuals with multiple registrations. The system, rather than rewarding excellence, rewards gamesmanship.

This distortion has real downstream effects. American graduates, especially in STEM fields, face a job market distorted by an influx of cheaper, bonded labor. Employers have no reason to invest in American talent when they can secure pliant, underpaid labor from abroad. The result is that US students are disincentivized from entering key fields. Wage growth stagnates. Innovation stalls. The human capital pipeline that should be the lifeblood of the US economy begins to wither.

To say that we want to end H-1B is not to say we oppose immigrants. Quite the opposite. We want a legal immigration system that attracts the world’s most talented, most patriotic, most industrious people. But the H-1B program does not do that. It brings in the cheap, not the exceptional. It brings in the compliant, not the creative. It rewards connections to outsourcing firms, not commitment to American ideals.

We need a replacement. One grounded in merit, loyalty, and prosperity, for both the immigrant and the American worker. The first principle of such a program is this: If a company has laid off American workers in the past year, it may not hire foreign replacements. No exceptions. The goal is to supplement American labor, not to sideline it.

Second, only direct employers may sponsor visa applicants. The outsourcing shell games must end. No more contractors. No more staffing firms. If a company wants foreign talent, it must be willing to hire and pay them directly.

Third, set a wage floor: 125 percent of the local median wage for that job. If a foreign worker is truly exceptional, they are worth paying for. If a company balks at that price, then it probably does not need the worker after all.

Fourth, grant foreign workers the right to change employers, but only for a raise. If they are in demand, they can move freely, but only upward. This prevents indentured servitude while reinforcing the idea that mobility must be based on merit.

Fifth, eliminate the random lottery. Replace it with a points-based system that ranks applicants by education, industry, national security relevance, English proficiency, and civic understanding. We should prioritize US-educated STEM graduates, entrepreneurs, researchers, and those with skills critical to defense and energy.

Sixth, require all applicants to commit to cultural assimilation and civic loyalty. No one should receive a visa unless they affirmatively renounce socialist or theocratic ideologies, embrace constitutional principles, and intend to become Americans in more than name only. This is a nation, not a hotel.

These are not radical ideas. They are the logical outgrowth of a nation committed to sovereignty, prosperity, and fair play. Legal immigration must be the high road, not the shortcut. The next Elon Musk should be welcomed. The next offshore call center should not.

Our goal is not to close the door but to build a better door, a merit-based system that rewards those who want to be Americans, not those who want to exploit Americans. The US has always welcomed immigrants who seek freedom, opportunity, and community. But we are under no obligation to maintain a system that commodifies labor, distorts markets, and betrays our workers.

A prosperous America can help the world. A poor America cannot. By scrapping H-1B and building a legal immigration system grounded in merit and loyalty, we strengthen our economy, reinforce our values, and restore faith in our institutions.

The fight is not against immigration. The fight is against exploitation. Let us be clear-eyed. We don’t oppose newcomers. We oppose the machinery that treats Americans as disposable. If you want to come here, build, and be part of this nation, not a satellite of your old one, we welcome you.

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