Lawyers call legal immigration crackdown harmful

By Andrew Rice
The Center Square

Immigration lawyers are concerned about recent proposals to eliminate work-based visa programs.

On Nov. 13, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she planned to introduce a bill to eventually eliminate the H-1B visa program.

In a video posted to social media, Greene said the H-1B program is “riddled with fraud and abuse” and has “been displacing American workers for decades.”

Greene said her bill will have a cap of 10,000 visas that will only be issued to doctors and nurses. If passed in both congressional chambers and signed into law, the cap will be phased out over a period of 10 years, Greene said.

Anna Gorisch, founder and managing partner of Kendall Immigration Law, said the effect of Greene’s proposal is unclear but she is worried about the harm it could have.

“We don’t have any clarity on any of these proposals and it makes it impossible to give good legal advice,” Gorisch said.

“My bill will take away the pathway to citizenship, forcing visa holders to return home when their visa expires,” Greene said.

Greene also said her bill would prevent noncitizens from being admitted in Medicare-funded medical residency programs.

Greene said the bill is designed to end the H-1B program in all other sectors of the workforce.

H-1B visas are issued by a wide range of companies across the United States. Typically, technology companies use the visa to recruit high-skilled workers with at least a bachelor’s degree. In 2025, Meta, Apple and Amazon were among the top petitioners for H-1B workers, according to federal data.

However, Gorisch said that 10,000 visas is not enough to meet the needs she sees in the labor force.

“We have foreign physicians who work in places that American grads don’t want to go,” Gorisch said.

Greene’s announcement follows weeks of turmoil over the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applicants.

On Sept. 19, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation to require H-1B visa holders pay a fee in order to apply for the program. Since the proclamation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the Trump administration over its proposed change.

“If implemented, that fee would inflict significant harm on American businesses, which would be forced to either dramatically increase their labor costs or hire fewer highly skilled employees for whom domestic replacements are not readily available,” the chamber said in its court filing.

Trump drew criticism from Greene after he made comments that appeared to be in support of H-1B visas in a Fox News interview that aired on Tuesday.

“I am solidly against you being replaced by foreign labor, like H-1Bs,” Greene said in a post dedicated to “the American people.”

Greene has yet to formally introduce the bill in Congress and it is unclear if she will get necessary support to pass its legislation. Still, Gorisch said she is concerned about the rhetoric associated with legal immigration from both sides of the political aisle.

In January, Sen. Bernie Sanders released a statement criticizing the H-1B program for taking jobs from American workers.

“The primary purpose of H-1B and other guest worker programs is not to employ the ‘best and the brightest,’ but instead to replace American workers with lower-paid workers from abroad who often live as indentured servants,” Sanders wrote in a news release.

“They have no friends,” Gorisch said about H-1B workers.

Gorisch said the most common misconception she sees in her work as a lawyer who helps applicants is that it is more expensive to hire an H-1B worker. She cited legal and processing fees to recruit foreign workers and the prevailing wage rate as to why it is more expensive.

The Department of Labor requires H-1B workers to be paid the prevailing wage rate for their occupational classification. This standardizes wages for H-1B workers across the country in particular jobs.

“They don’t have to pay the U.S. workers as well. There’s no legal requirement that they do so,” Gorisch said.

Gorisch highlighted the complexity of legal immigration and called on lawmakers to seek practical reform efforts rather than the elimination.

“I wish they would approach it with more questions than statements,” Gorisch said.