H-1B Approvals Hit 97.6% Under Trump's Second Term — and His Own Base Can't Agree on What It Means

The number landed like a grenade in the middle of the MAGA coalition: 97.6%. That is the share of H-1B visa petitions approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the first full fiscal year of Donald Trump's second presidency — a rate that matches the Biden administration's most permissive years and dwarfs the approval levels of Trump's own first term [1][2].

For a president who rode to office twice on promises to protect American workers from foreign labor competition, the figure has become an ideological flashpoint. On one side stand Silicon Valley executives and tech-aligned administration allies who argue the program attracts irreplaceable talent. On the other, populist conservatives who say the visa system is a wage-suppression machine dressed up in meritocratic language.

The fight is not abstract. It involves real policy choices, real money, and real tension between the people who fund Trump's political operation and the voters who power it.

The Numbers: What 97.6% Actually Measures

USCIS adjudicated approximately 415,275 H-1B petitions in FY2025, approving 406,349 and denying 8,926 — yielding an approval rate of 97.9% for the full fiscal year [1]. The 97.6% figure, widely cited in media reports, reflects data through late FY2025 that was available before final-quarter numbers were tabulated [2].

These figures include initial petitions, extensions, transfers, and amendments — not just new hires. Immigration attorneys caution that raw approval counts can overstate new foreign hiring because extensions of existing workers and transfers between employers are generally less contentious and more likely to be approved [3].

The annual H-1B cap remains at 65,000 regular visas plus 20,000 for holders of U.S. master's degrees or higher, a limit Congress set in 2004 and has not changed since [4]. For FY2026, USCIS received 343,981 eligible lottery registrations — down from 470,342 the prior year — and selected 120,141, representing about 118,660 unique beneficiaries [5]. The cap was reached in July 2025 [5].

The decline in registrations may partly explain the high approval rate: with fewer overall applications and a more self-selecting pool, the petitions that reach adjudication tend to be stronger.

Source: USCIS via Pew Research / BAL Immigration Law

Data as of Mar 1, 2026CSV

A Stark Reversal From Trump's First Term

The contrast with Trump's first presidency is difficult to overstate. After signing the "Buy American and Hire American" executive order in April 2017, the administration directed USCIS to scrutinize H-1B petitions more aggressively. Denial rates for initial employment petitions peaked at 24% in FY2018, compared to 6–8% in the final Obama years [6][7].

Request for Evidence (RFE) rates — a procedural step that delays and complicates petitions — surged under first-term policies targeting computer-related occupations. By FY2020, denial rates had declined to 13%, partly because federal courts struck down several of the administration's restrictive interpretations of "specialty occupation" rules [6].

Under Biden, denial rates fell to 2% by FY2022 — a record low since at least 2009 [6]. The current 97.6% approval rate under Trump's second term is functionally indistinguishable from Biden-era levels.

The question that divides analysts: did Trump's team deliberately relax enforcement, or did the legal and bureaucratic infrastructure inherited from Biden simply continue operating on autopilot?

Policy Changes: Fees Up, Scrutiny Mixed

The second Trump administration has not been passive on H-1B policy, but its interventions have been uneven in direction.

The $100,000 fee. On September 19, 2025, Trump issued a proclamation requiring employers to pay a $100,000 fee for each new H-1B petition filed for a beneficiary residing outside the United States [8]. The fee is separate from standard USCIS filing fees and applies only to workers not already in the country. A coalition of 20 state attorneys general, led by California's Rob Bonta, sued to block the fee, arguing it violates the Administrative Procedure Act and exceeds executive authority [9]. A federal judge in Washington, D.C. upheld the fee in December 2025, but two additional challenges remain pending in Massachusetts and Northern California [10].

The weighted lottery. DHS published a final rule on December 23, 2025, replacing the random H-1B lottery with a weighted selection system that gives higher odds to applicants offered higher wages relative to prevailing wage levels for their occupation and location [11]. The rule took effect for the FY2027 cycle in February 2026 [11]. Proponents say it prioritizes skilled, well-compensated workers; critics argue it advantages large corporations that can afford to offer higher salaries over startups and smaller employers.

RFE rates rising again. As of early 2025, RFE rates had increased 23 percentage points compared to 2024 [12]. Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) site visits more than doubled since late 2025, and the Department of Labor launched "Project Firewall" in September 2025, increasing random inspections of employer worksites — especially third-party placements [12][13].

Specialty occupation tightened. The H-1B Modernization Final Rule, effective January 17, 2025, narrowed the definition of "specialty occupation" to require that a worker's degree be directly related to the duties of the position — a change that had been proposed under Biden but finalized just before the transition [14].

The paradox: RFE rates and site visits are up, suggesting tighter scrutiny, yet overall approval rates remain near record highs. One possible explanation is that the higher fee and weighted lottery are filtering out weaker petitions before they reach adjudication, meaning the cases that do get reviewed are stronger on average.

Who Benefits: The Corporate Landscape

Amazon remained the single largest H-1B sponsor in FY2025, with 10,044 approved petitions — up from 9,257 the prior year [3]. Microsoft followed at 5,189, Meta at 5,123, Google at approximately 4,800, and Apple at 4,202 [3]. JPMorgan Chase saw one of the largest year-over-year increases, jumping from 1,719 to 2,440 approved petitions [3].

Source: USCIS H-1B Employer Data Hub

Data as of Dec 1, 2025CSV

These numbers include extensions and transfers, not just new hires, and many of these employers are cap-exempt for university-affiliated research or hold blanket approvals for recurring positions [3]. Still, the concentration among a handful of trillion-dollar companies reinforces the restrictionist argument that the program disproportionately benefits firms with the resources to navigate the system.

Tech industry lobbying on immigration is substantial. The Information Technology Industry Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and individual companies like Amazon and Microsoft have spent tens of millions annually on lobbying that includes H-1B-related advocacy [15]. Several top H-1B employers — including Amazon, Google, and Meta — have executives with personal relationships to senior administration officials, though direct quid pro quo has not been documented.

The Labor Market Context

The approval rate surge comes during a period of genuine strain in the U.S. tech labor market — though the nature of that strain is contested.

The national unemployment rate stood at 4.3% as of April 2026, up from 3.5% in mid-2023 [16]. Tech-sector unemployment has been more volatile: it peaked at 5.7% in January 2025, exceeding the national average, before settling in the low 4% range later that year [17].

Source: FRED / Bureau of Labor Statistics

Data as of Apr 1, 2026CSV

For recent computer science graduates, the picture is grimmer. The unemployment rate for CS graduates reached 6.1%, nearly double that of philosophy majors, according to Federal Reserve Bank of New York data [17]. Underemployment — defined as working in a job that does not require a college degree — hit 19.1% for CS majors [17]. Entry-level software engineering postings dropped roughly 30% year-over-year as measured by Handshake in 2025 [17].

AI-related roles, cloud infrastructure, and cybersecurity positions remain in demand, creating what economists describe as a bifurcated labor market: abundant opportunity for specialists, diminishing prospects for generalists [17].

Labor economists are divided on whether H-1B workers fill genuine gaps or displace domestic talent. A 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research study found that H-1B workers in computer occupations modestly depress wages for native-born workers in the same roles, with the effect concentrated at junior levels. Other research, including work by economists Giovanni Peri and Chad Sparber, argues that high-skilled immigration generates complementary job creation that offsets displacement [18].

The Wage Question

Critics of the H-1B program point to wage data as evidence of systematic underpayment. According to the Economic Policy Institute, 63% of certified Labor Condition Applications in FY2024 were filed at Wage Level 1 or Level 2 — the two lowest tiers [19]. Employers hiring at Level 1 pay approximately 36% below the median wage for the same occupation and region; Level 2 represents an 18% discount [19].

Source: Economic Policy Institute

Data as of Jun 1, 2025CSV

The average prevailing wage across all H-1B LCAs was $111,717, while the average offered wage was $121,908 — above the prevailing floor but still roughly $19,000 below the Bureau of Labor Statistics' mean wage for equivalent occupations in the same geographies ($130,219) [19][20].

In March 2026, the Department of Labor published a proposed rule that would overhaul prevailing wage calculations, potentially raising entry-level salary requirements by more than 30% [20]. The rule remains in the comment period and has not been finalized.

Defenders of the program note that prevailing wage levels are set by statute and regulation, not by employer choice, and that the four-tier system was designed to accommodate workers at different career stages. They also argue that comparing LCA wages to occupational medians is misleading because many H-1B workers are junior employees whose domestic counterparts earn similar amounts.

The MAGA Civil War

The H-1B debate cracked open a fault line within Trump's coalition that had been visible since late December 2024, when Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy — then co-leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency — publicly defended the visa program [21].

Musk, himself a former visa holder, argued that American companies cannot find enough qualified domestic workers for advanced technical roles. "The program is broken and needs major reform," he posted on X, proposing higher salary floors and additional fees rather than elimination [22].

Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, called the program "a scam run by Silicon Valley oligarchs" and demanded that current H-1B holders be deported alongside undocumented immigrants [23]. "American workers should be hired immediately to fill those gaps, and then we should start the discussions on reparations for what they knowingly did to American tech workers," Bannon said on his podcast [23].

Laura Loomer, a political activist with close ties to Trump, led an early social media campaign against Sriram Krishnan, the Indian-born U.S. citizen Trump appointed as his senior AI adviser [21]. Loomer later accused Musk of retaliating against her by demonetizing her X account and removing her verification badge after she criticized his H-1B stance [22].

Trump himself has tried to straddle the divide. "I've always liked the visas. I have always been in favor of the visas," he told the New York Post in late December 2024, a statement that shocked supporters who remembered his first-term crackdowns [24]. More recently, the $100,000 fee and weighted lottery suggest an attempt to thread the needle — maintaining high approval volumes to satisfy corporate allies while imposing costs and selection criteria that signal toughness to the base.

The Restrictionist Case, Steelmanned

The strongest version of the anti-H-1B argument rests on three pillars:

Wage suppression is structural, not incidental. With 63% of LCAs at the bottom two wage tiers [19], the program's design allows employers to legally pay well below market rates. The Heritage Foundation and Center for Immigration Studies argue that this creates a permanent wage ceiling in fields like IT services, where H-1B-dependent outsourcing firms (such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy, and Wipro) historically filed large volumes of petitions at Level 1 wages [25].

Documented displacement is real. In 2015, Disney, Southern California Edison, and the University of California laid off American IT workers and required them to train their H-1B replacements — often supplied by outsourcing firms — as a condition of receiving severance [18][25]. The AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees documented similar patterns at New York Life, MassMutual, and Toys "R" Us [26]. None of these cases resulted in federal penalties.

The "best and brightest" framing is selective. While individual H-1B workers at Google or Apple may earn $200,000 or more, the program-wide median wage is pulled down by the high volume of outsourcing firm petitions. Restrictionists argue that the administration's rhetoric about attracting top talent obscures the program's actual usage pattern.

The Pro-H-1B Case

Defenders counter with their own data:

Labor shortages are documented in specific fields. The unemployment rate for AI/ML specialists, cybersecurity engineers, and cloud architects remains below 2%, according to CompTIA and LinkedIn workforce data [17]. Companies argue they cannot fill these roles domestically, particularly at the speed required to compete with Chinese and European firms.

Economic complementarity. Research by Peri and Sparber suggests that each H-1B worker generates approximately 1.83 additional jobs for native-born workers through innovation spillovers and firm growth [18]. A National Foundation for American Policy study found that H-1B-intensive firms were more likely to create domestic positions than to eliminate them.

Reform, not abolition. Many tech executives and immigration attorneys advocate raising wage floors, eliminating the outsourcing loophole, and shifting to a merit-based allocation — essentially what the weighted lottery and proposed DOL wage rule attempt to do — rather than cutting visa numbers.

Congressional and Regulatory Levers

Several tools exist to alter H-1B policy without new legislation:

• Prevailing wage recalculation: The DOL's March 2026 proposed rule could raise entry-level wage floors by 30% or more, effectively pricing out the lowest-paying petitions [20].
• Specialty occupation definition: USCIS has already tightened the standard through rulemaking; further narrowing could exclude more generalist roles.
• Weighted lottery adjustment: DHS can modify the wage-weighting formula through the regulatory process.
• Site-visit enforcement: Expanding Project Firewall requires no legislation, only budget allocation.

On the legislative side, the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2025 (S.2928), introduced by Senators Grassley, Durbin, Tuberville, and Sanders, would create a tiered petition system prioritizing STEM education, skill level, and wage, and would set a minimum wage requirement at the Level 2 prevailing wage [27]. The bill has bipartisan support but faces an uncertain path in a Congress consumed by budget reconciliation and appropriations fights.

The realistic timeline for major legislative reform is measured in years, not months. Executive and regulatory actions — the $100,000 fee, weighted lottery, and wage rule — are the most likely near-term vectors for change.

What Comes Next

The 97.6% approval rate is a snapshot of a system in transition. The weighted lottery has not yet produced a full cycle of data. The $100,000 fee faces ongoing litigation. The DOL wage rule remains a proposal. Each of these interventions could significantly alter approval rates, employer behavior, and the composition of the H-1B workforce within the next 12 to 18 months.

What is already clear is that the political coalition Trump assembled cannot agree on what the program should look like. The tech donors want volume and speed. The populist base wants restriction and protection. The administration has so far tried to give both sides enough to claim partial victory — a strategy that works until one side decides the other is getting more than its share.

The H-1B program, designed in 1990 for a labor market that no longer exists, has become a proxy for a larger question: who benefits from the American economy, and who decides? The 97.6% figure does not answer that question. It just makes it harder to avoid.