The Numbers Are NOT in Dispute

Two-thirds of Silicon Valley's roughly 400,000 tech jobs are held by workers born outside the United States, according to a 2025 report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley. Indian-born workers hold 23% of those jobs. Chinese-born workers hold 18%. American-born workers? 34%.

In the tech capital of the United States, Americans are a minority in their own industry.

The H-1B visa program, created by Congress in 1990, is the main pipeline. The statutory cap is 65,000 visas per year, plus 20,000 more for foreign graduates of U.S. universities holding master's degrees or doctorates, according to the American Immigration Council. For fiscal year 2025, that cap was hit on December 2, 2024 — before the fiscal year was even three months old.

Demand far exceeds supply. But who benefits?

Mary's Story — and Why It's Real

Mary is a veteran Silicon Valley marketer. Google. Cisco. Two decades of experience. She's been job hunting for two years and can't get hired.

Her former CEO — born in India — told her to train her own foreign-born replacement before he laid her off. Her replacement, she says, works for half to two-thirds of her salary.

"Silicon Valley is flooded with people who work for two-thirds of the price, or even half price," Mary told RealClearInvestigations, which published the account via ZeroHedge. She asked to be identified only by her first name.

This pattern repeats across the industry. The roster of foreign-born executives running America's most powerful tech companies tells a story about hiring direction. Microsoft is led by Satya Nadella. Alphabet/Google by Sundar Pichai. Adobe by Shantanu Narayen. IBM by Arvind Krishna. YouTube by Neal Mohan. Intel by Lip-Bu Tan, Malaysian-born, CEO since March 2025. All born abroad, according to RealClearInvestigations.

That's not a problem in itself — talent is talent. But it raises an obvious question: when the people doing the hiring were themselves H-1B beneficiaries, how hard are they looking for American candidates?

The Pro-H-1B Case — and What It Gets Right

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Immigration Council are not making things up either. Their data deserves a straight hearing.

According to research cited by the Chamber, referencing the George Mason University Mercatus Center: in cities where companies receive more H-1B visa approvals, American jobs in computer-related industries actually increase and wages for college-educated Americans grow. In cities where H-1B denials go up, American tech jobs decrease.

The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), also cited by the Chamber, found that a higher share of H-1B workers within an occupation reduces the unemployment rate in that occupation and accelerates earnings growth for U.S. workers.

The Cato Institute points out that from 2003 to 2021, median H-1B wages grew 52%, versus 39% for all U.S. workers. If companies were purely exploiting foreign workers for slave wages, that gap wouldn't exist.

These are real findings from serious researchers. Dismissing them wholesale ignores substantial evidence.

What Both Sides Are Leaving Out

The pro-H-1B crowd — the Chamber, Big Tech lobbying arms, and immigration advocacy groups — lean heavily on macro-level wage and employment data. That data looks at averages across entire metro areas. It does NOT tell you what happens to the specific American mid-career worker who gets replaced and told to train their foreign-born successor. Averages can go up while specific workers get crushed. Both things can be true simultaneously.

The anti-H-1B crowd — some Republicans, some old-school labor Democrats, and populist outlets — focuses on individual horror stories like Mary's. Those stories are real. But they sometimes skip the inconvenient fact that parts of the tech sector genuinely cannot find enough qualified American candidates for highly specialized roles. The pipeline problem in U.S. STEM education is real and has been for decades.

The actual enforcement gap the American Immigration Council acknowledges but buries: employers must file a Labor Condition Application swearing that hiring an H-1B worker won't harm American wages or working conditions. But enforcement of that attestation is notoriously weak. Swearing on a form that you tried hard enough to find an American worker is not the same as actually trying hard enough. This is where abuse happens.

The Reform Fight in Washington

The debate in Washington splits across traditional party lines. Some Republicans who are tough on immigration are fighting the program. Some Democrats with union ties oppose it too. Big Tech — which donates to both parties — is fighting reform hard.

During Trump's first term, USCIS denial rates for new H-1B petitions climbed from 6% in FY2015 to 24% in FY2018, according to the American Immigration Council. Many of those denials were later overturned in court. The system is a mess.

The Mid-Career Problem

If you're a mid-career American tech worker, the macro data about rising average wages is cold comfort when you're Mary — two years unemployed, watching your former job get filled by someone who cost the company half as much.

The H-1B program was designed to fill genuine skill gaps. That's a legitimate goal. What it has become — in too many cases — is a cost-cutting tool dressed up in visa paperwork, with a Labor Condition Application that companies check like a box and enforcement agencies barely scrutinize.

Fix the enforcement. Require real proof that American workers were genuinely sought. Impose real penalties for fraud.

Until that happens, the program will keep doing exactly what Mary says it does. And Washington will keep arguing about the macro statistics while real Americans train their own replacements.