Washington loves to pretend that the H-1B visa is a pipeline of brilliance — a system designed to bring the world’s top talent to America. That fiction survives only because no one in power is willing to say the obvious: the H-1B program isn’t about skill, innovation, or shortages. It’s about cheap, compliant labor.
There is no real skills filter or university accreditation in the H-1B program. Outside of fashion models, the law requires nothing more than a bachelor’s degree. An entire cottage industry now exists to sell “qualifications” to foreign nationals seeking visas.
The law requires nothing more than a bachelor’s degree, and even that can be — and often is — purchased from diploma mills that exist solely to manufacture “credentials” for visa petitions. USCIS doesn’t track where degrees come from, doesn’t verify quality, authenticity , and doesn’t even know how many H-1B approvals rest on fraudulent foundations or real credentialed university . Ignorance isn’t an accident. It’s policy.
If this were a talent program, visas wouldn’t be handed out by lottery. The very existence of a random drawing exposes the truth: employers don’t care who they get, so long as they get someone cheaper.
Why other countries allow their best of the best sent to America if they can help their country compete and succeed in global technology at their home country.
H-1B was never built to solve shortages. It was built to create a new class of workers who can’t negotiate, can’t easily switch jobs, and have every incentive to stay silent. The winners are the corporations that profit from the loopholes , The politicians who receive money from corporations. Losers are American workers with collage degree with a lot of debt— and the integrity of our labor law and immigration system.