Why all these unnecessary foreign worker programs?

July 10, 2025 Update

All of the net job gains since January have gone to American-born workers. Two million more U.S.-born Americans are working, while the number of foreign-born workers declined by more than 500,000. Americans are “doing the jobs” and then some. Yet the case for fewer foreign worker programs grows stronger.

“It’s difficult to find a new job right now,” reports Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Young people are struggling to land their first jobs and anyone who has been laid off is having a hard time. The labor market is frozen outside of healthcare, education and law enforcement jobs.”

Yes, job opportunities are scarce even for STEM grads.

Nearly two million people have been continuously trying to get back to work and failing to find the opportunity. This is no labor shortage.

Tech companies have cut 75,000 jobs since January, a 35% increase over last year, but they continue to apply for guest workers. This is the same industry that cut 170,000 jobs from 2022-2023 while registering for 780,000 guest workers.

Microsoft alone plans to fill 14,000 jobs with foreign workers this year while eliminating 9,000 positions.

I assume most foreign guest workers are wonderful people. I know this is often true. Some have truly remarkable skills. But most are good, average workers that we simply do not need.

July 2nd Update

The number of prime-working-age American men who aren’t working remains at or near record highs. Nearly 30 percent of non-college workers do not have jobs.  Young graduates are facing an employment crisis. High-school graduates ages 18 to 19 with no college averaged an unemployment rate of 14.5% over the past 12 months. Tech layoffs are surging, but H-1B requests are still chugging along.

June 26, 2025 Update

White collar jobs on the decline

NumbersUSA has historically emphasized the need for immigration policy to – at minimum – due no harm to America’s most vulnerable workers. To make the case for immigration reduction, however, one need only look at the situation for white collar workers, who have seen opportunities in the public sector decline for years now.

Two out of five employers told the World Economic Forum that they plan on cutting their workforce. These companies include some of America’s largest employers: Amazon, Google, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Estee Lauder, and Hewlett Packard. In light of these trends, what is the case for issuing over a million green cards every year to permanent foreign workers, and another roughly one million work permits to temporary foreign workers?

“It’s the worst job market for recent college graduates since the peak of the COVID pandemic and before that, since the Great Recession,” writes Ryan James Girdusky in his National Populist Newsletter. And yet the foreign-worker train keeps chugging along. Foreign-student enrollment and OPT workers are increasing, and the U.S. will grant another 100,000+ H-1B visas this year.

See: 2024 Top 200 Employers for OPT and STEM-OPT Students

“Too many grads, not enough jobs.”

Published June 15, 2025

I ripped these phrases from the news this month about the grim prospects ahead for American graduates in computer science and engineering (6.1 and 7.5 percent unemployment, respectively!). Wages are stagnant; there aren’t enough opportunities; and federal guest worker programs like OPT and H-1B are not only unnecessary, but are contributing to the problem.

Immigration maximalists sell guest worker programs as solutions to temporary labor shortages, but the reality is something else completely. These programs bypass domestic workers and exploit foreigners who work for less. As the headlines this week make clear, there is no shortage of American STEM talent. So why is our government filling hundreds of thousands of jobs with guest workers?