What to know about H-1B visas at the center of Musk-MAGA fight

A simmering debate over work visas exploded over the last days of the year, exposing a rift over immigration among President-elect Trump’s closest supporters.

The H-1B visa — a temporary, nonimmigrant work permit — is at the center of the MAGA-on-MAGA strife, with one faction claiming it’s a necessary tool to attract professional talent to the United States and the other deriding the visa program as a burden on American workers.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — the incoming chiefs of Trump’s nascent "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) — took the mantle of H-1B defenders, largely arguing that the visa program allows U.S. companies to hire workers they need and can’t find in sufficient numbers within the country.

“I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend,” Musk, reportedly a former H-1B recipient, wrote in one of several posts on the social platform X defending the visas.

Trump’s former political strategist, Steve Bannon, stormed into the debate, calling the entire program a “scam” run by Silicon Valley oligarchs.

Political activist Laura Loomer initially led the anti-H-1B side of the debate in a social media tirade against Sriram Krishnan, an Indian-born U.S. citizen whom Trump named his senior artificial intelligence adviser. Loomer falsely claimed Krishnan sought to remove all caps on H-1B visas — he called for a removal of country caps on green cards, a collective term for immigrant visas — though she later apologized for sharing Federal Election Commission records containing Krishnan’s personal information.

Musk’s X platform lashed out against opponents in the debate by reportedly rescinding several blue check mark verifications, including Loomer’s.

The doxing apology followed a social media post by Trump in support of the H-1B program, saying “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”

While Trump businesses had previously been reported to use H-2B visas to hire nonagricultural, temporary workers, they would require H-1Bs to hire foreign workers for a range of specialty occupations that require college degrees.

Here’s what you need to know about the H-1B visa:

It's the workhorse of professional employment-based visas

H-1B visas are often sought by foreign students hoping to continue a U.S.-based career after receiving graduate or undergraduate degrees in the country.

The tech industry has also used H-1Bs as a recruitment tool for non-U.S. graduates in specialized occupations that industry leaders claim they can’t fill with U.S. workers.

By and large the H-1B visa is the only significant channel for foreign graduates to enter the U.S. workforce. Other avenues, such as the O-1 visa, are restricted to high-profile applicants in specific industries and are given out in much smaller numbers.

By statute, the federal government can only grant 65,000 H-1B visas each fiscal year, plus another 20,000 to applicants with graduate degrees — that’s known as the H-1B visa cap.

Because there are generally more applicants than visas available, visas are allotted by a lottery conducted after preapplications are filed in April, six months before the start of the fiscal year.

Certain nonprofit and academic organizations are exempt from that cap and can sponsor the visas year-round. Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced a revamp of the H-1B system that more clearly defined cap-exempt employers and occupations.

The lottery

Perhaps one of the most criticized elements of the H-1B program is the lottery system that selects beneficiaries subject to the cap.

The first Trump administration reformed the lottery system in 2020 at the behest of business leaders, allowing companies to register their prospective H-1B employees with a reduced fee before the lottery rather than filing a full application subject to the luck of the draw.

Still, undergraduate employees and their employers are often advised their chances of scoring an H-1B are about 50-50, even if they fully meet eligibility requirements.

Even with that change, the lottery system was vulnerable to different companies filing multiple applications for one worker, flooding the lottery and reducing other workers’ chances of getting their applications reviewed.

As of fiscal 2025, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) changed from an employer-based system to a beneficiary-centric system, meaning each prospective worker will only count toward the lottery once, regardless of the number of applications filed on their behalf.

Tweaks like those are core to the H-1B, a visa that’s mutated over the years.

It's been around for decades

The H-1B was created by Congress in the Immigration Act of 1990, which largely laid out the blueprint for the visa system still in place today.

Since its creation, Congress has tweaked the H-1B at least six times, not counting the times USCIS has modified the rules.

But it’s a descendant of the H-1 visa from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which is controversial because it upheld the national origin quota system established in 1924 that at the time excluded most immigrants from Asia.

And though the H-1B is not subject to national quotas — its numerical limitation is instead set by the statutory cap — the transition from H-1B to permanent residence has created an H-1B trap that’s primarily affected Indian nationals.

Last month, Krishnan replied to Musk on X calling on DOGE to remove country caps for green cards.

Because immigrant visas, the green card visa categories, do have national origin caps, H-1B beneficiaries from countries that have reached their caps can get stuck on H-1B status indefinitely.

In principle, H-1Bs are granted for three years and renewable for another three-year period, while beneficiaries are allowed to apply for green cards in the meantime.

If those beneficiaries are approved for permanent residency but cannot get a green card issued because they are from a country that’s hit its cap, they are then allowed to renew their H-1Bs on a yearly basis, and remain subject to the limitations of that visa, including a nearly airtight dependence on their employer.

For certain categories of green cards, Indian nationals can expect a 130-plus year waiting period.

That’s led H-1B supporters like Ramaswamy to criticize the program’s current structure as a form of indentured servitude.

Still, most analysts believe the H-1B’s economic impact outweighs its limitations.

Economic impact

According to an analysis by the American Immigration Council (AIC), multiple studies have found H-1Bs lead to greater employment opportunities for native-born workers and more patent applications in the United States.

The AIC research found that industries with heavy H-1B usage had lower unemployment rates even through the COVID-19 pandemic, and that H-1B holders generally drove wages up.

But organizations that call for reduced immigration remain opposed to the visas, which they say drive wages down.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group close to incoming White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, proposes a series of reforms to the H-1B program, including removing beneficiaries’ right to apply for a green card, only granting H-1Bs to master’s degree graduates and implementing random audits of H-1B employers.

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