Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has directed the board overseeing Florida’s university system to “pull the plug” on H-1B visas used in the state’s colleges.
DeSantis railed against the visa program on Wednesday as a way for companies to hire foreign workers instead of Floridians as “cheap labor” to cut costs.
“I am directing, today, the Florida Board of Governors to pull the plug on the use of the H-1B visas in our universities. We can do it with our residents in Florida or with Americans,” DeSantis said.
The H-1B visa program, used by non-immigrant foreign workers to perform specialty jobs within the United States, has come under a microscope in recent months, as the Trump administration issued an executive action requiring a $100,000 fee to be paid alongside all applications. It sold the fee as a way of making sure U.S. companies retain the best foreign students if they are going to hire them over Americans as workers.
“The company needs to decide, is that person valuable enough to have $100,000-a-year payment to the government, or [should they] go hire an American?” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.
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DeSantis said Florida’s state colleges are abusing the program to hire more H-1B visa workers than necessary, as university systems are exempt from the federal cap on how many visas companies are allowed per year.
“It turns out these tech companies will fire Americans and hire H-1B at a discount, and they are basically indentured servants because they go in and they are almost all from one country,” DeSantis said. “They bring them in, and then they’re indentured to the company. So, the company can basically pay them low.”
He pointed to various positions held by H-1B visa recipients in the state universities his administration found, including assistant professors from China, an assistant swim coach from Spain, and a psychologist and counselor from the United Kingdom.
“How is that specialized knowledge that only someone from these places can do?” DeSantis said. “We need to make sure our citizens here in Florida are first in line for job opportunities.”
DeSantis made the announcement during a press conference at the University of South Florida on Wednesday. Interim president at the University of Florida, Donald Landry, also spoke and called the H-1B visa program a “complex issue,” but conceded it is “not handled in a pristine fashion.”
He joked that DeSantis “ever so gently called out” his university.
“Occasionally, some bright light might be good enough for the faculty. And then we will try and retain the person into whom we’ve invested so much,” Landry said of faculty hired through the visa program, but called the circumstance an exception to the norm.
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Landry said the University of Florida endorses the state’s review of H-1B and is currently conducting its own review.
During the announcement, DeSantis also announced the cancellation or repurposing of over $33 million worth of grants intended for what his office called “[diversity, equity, and inclusion]-centric, discriminatory missions.”
