An immigration dispute has erupted between supporters of Donald Trump over the long-standing US visa program.
The dispute is over H-1B visas, which allow US-based companies to bring in skilled workers from abroad in certain industries.
Some immigration hardliners say the scheme undermines American workers — but advocates say the visas allow the U.S. to attract the best professionals from around the world.
The president-elect has spoken out, saying he supports the program — despite criticizing it in the past — and tech billionaire Elon Musk has also defended it, saying it attracts “the top ~0.1% of engineering talent.”
Here’s what the data tells us about who is entering the US with these visas.
How many people are approved each year?
H-1B visas for skilled workers were introduced in 1990. They are usually issued for three years, but can be extended to a maximum of six years.
Since 2004, the number of new H-1B visas issued has been limited to 85,000 per year – 20,000 of which are reserved for foreign students with master’s degrees or higher degrees from US universities.
However, this cap does not apply to some institutions such as universities, think tanks and other non-profit research groups, so more is often issued.
People can apply for an H-1B visa only if they have contracted employment with a sponsoring company or institution based in the US.
The US government also grants extensions to those already working in the country.
Just over 386,000 H-1B petitions were approved in fiscal year 2023 (October 2022 – September 2023), the most recent year for which we have complete data, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) figures..
This includes nearly 119,000 new H-1B visas and about 267,000 extensions of existing visas.
The 2023 total is down from more than 474,000 in 2022.
What happened under Trump?
There have been attempts in the past to further restrict the H-1B program.
In 2017, then-President Trump signed the executive order that increased oversight of H-1B visa applications. The order sought to improve the detection of fraud within the scheme.
Bounce rates took a hit an all-time high during the first Trump administrationreaching 24% in fiscal year 2018, compared to rejection rates between 5-8% under the Obama administration and between 2-4% under President Biden.
However, the total number of approved candidates under the Biden administration was similar to that under the first Trump administration.
In the three years following President Trump’s executive order (2018-2020), approximately 1.1 million applications were approved, of which approximately 343,000 were new applicants.
In the first three years of the Biden administration (2021-2023), about 1.2 million applications were approved, and nearly 375,000 were new applicants.
Demand often exceeds the amount of visas granted – in most years thousands more applications are submitted than granted.
In cases where more applications are received than visas are available, USCIS effectively operates the H-1B program as a lottery — which detractors believe highlights a fundamental flaw in the system.
“Ultimately, if you’re going to have a skilled worker program for ‘skilled’ workers, you don’t award these visas through a lottery,” said Eric Ruark, director of research at NumbersUSA, an organization that advocates for tighter immigration controls.
“Obviously, that’s not how you find the best and brightest.”
We don’t yet have a full report on the numbers for 2024, but preliminary figures show that the number of applications has risen sharply.
Number of eligible registrations published by USCIS showed 758,994 claims in 2024, compared to 474,421 in 2023.
With Trump returning to the White House in January, Mr. Ruark says he believes the resolution of the H-1B debate will ultimately be one of the defining factors of his presidency.
“Will that second term be pro-American worker, or will it revert to the old establishment Republican view that immigration is designed to help employers — at the expense of American workers?” he says.
“It will be a big fight in the second term.”
What industries and companies do they work in?
The vast majority of approved applicants work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The majority are in computer-related occupations – 65% in FY 2023.
Architecture, engineering and surveying followed – around 10% of approved people in 2023 worked in these sectors.
As for companies, Amazon was the largest employer people on H-1B visas in 2024, employing more than 13,000 workers through the program.
Other well-known names such as Google, Meta and Apple are high on the list of employers – in 4th, 6th and 8th place respectively.
Tesla, one of the companies owned by Elon Musk — who backed the program — ranked 22nd, employing more than 1,700 people on H-1B visas.
California and Texas were the states with the most people working on H-1B visas in 2024.
How much do they earn?
The median annual income of people approved to work in the US on an H-1B visa in fiscal year 2023 was $118,000 (£94,000).
The median annual income for people in computer and math occupations across the US is around $113,000 (£90,000) – slightly less than those in similar sectors through the H-1B program.
The median household income in the US it is about $60,000 (£48,000) a year.
While opponents of the H-1B system often make the argument that H-1B holders undermine the wages of American workers, some immigration lawyers and experts reject the idea.
The vast majority of H-1B holders earn more than the “prevailing wage” for their occupation—a figure determined by the Department of Labor that calculates the average wage paid to similarly situated workers in a particular part of the country.
Shev Dalal-Dheini, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told the BBC that while prevailing wages “are not a complete test of the labor market”, they are indicative of the fact that H-1B visa holders are not adversely affecting the rest workforce.
“Let’s say you’re a software engineer in Washington, DC. You look at the going rate for software engineers in DC, and you have to confirm that you’re paying at least that amount,” says Ms. Dalal-Dheini, who also worked on H-1B issues while serving as an to USCIS.
“You’re not actually lowering wages that way.”
Additionally, Ms. Dalal-Dheini says U.S. companies must also pay significant H-1B filing fees, often in addition to attorneys’ fees.
“The companies that end up sponsoring the H-1B [recipients] you’re looking at costs of up to $5,000 to $10,000 on top of what you would have to pay an American worker,” she says.
“The bottom line is that if they could find an American worker who was qualified, most companies would probably choose to hire that American worker because it would be a cost savings.”
Where do people come from?
The vast majority of those approved come from India.
The the latest data showed about 72% of visas were issued to Indian citizens, followed by 12% to Chinese citizens.
About 1% come from the Philippines, Canada and South Korea.
About 70% of those who enter the US on H-1B visas are men, and the average age of those approved is about 33 years old.
Additional reporting by Becky Dale.
