❓WHAT HAPPENED: The Trump administration is considering changes to the H-1B visa system, including a potential “weighted selection process” for applicants. While the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed notice of a possible change with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on Thursday, the filing provided no further details.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: DHS, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and President Donald J. Trump.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The filing was made on Thursday with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
🎯IMPACT: Changes could prioritize highly skilled workers, though details remain unclear, and the rule is unlikely to affect next year’s visa holders.
The Trump administration is exploring changes to the H-1B visa system, which is heavily used by the tech industry to employ foreign labor, usually at far lower wages than their American counterparts. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) filed a notice with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, proposing a “weighted selection process” for applicants under the capped portion of the program. The filing, however, provides no further details as to how the new system would function.
The H-1B visa has faced increased scrutiny, with some supporters of President Donald J. Trump pushing for stricter immigration rules. Meanwhile, figures like former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) frontman Elon Musk and others in the tech industry have defended the program. Critics argue that the current lottery system disproportionately benefits larger companies such as Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, and leaves American workers at a disadvantage, having to compete with cheap foreign labor.
While the statutory cap for H-1B visas is set at 85,000 per year, the proposed changes could alter this limit. Any potential increase in the cap—which is already circumvented through a number of regulatory exceptions—would likely be met with intense backlash from the America First movement. The DHS filing, however, provided little detail about how the weighted selection process would work. Currently, visas are allocated randomly through a lottery system, which does not prioritize applicants based on qualifications or salary.
The National Pulse reported in May that the replacement of native-born American workers with cheap foreign labor remains unabated despite strong public opinion against the policy. While the total approvals for 2026 are lower than the peak years under the former Biden government, data shows 120,141 H-1B visas have been accepted for the next year. This is about equivalent to the total number of H-1Bs approved for 2021, cleared during the final year of President Trump’s first term in office.
While no specific deadline was included in the filing, the rule is unlikely to impact next year’s visa holders, as the program has already reached its capacity for the current cycle.
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