Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pressed several major tech companies Wednesday about their reliance on the H-1B visa program amid recent layoffs.
The senators sent letters to top executives at Amazon, Apple, Cognizant, Google, Meta and Microsoft, as well as Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Tata Consultancy Services and Walmart.
“We are concerned about some troubling employment trends in the tech industry,” Grassley and Durbin wrote to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, pointing to reports of rising unemployment in the sector.
“With all of the homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines, we find it hard to believe that Amazon cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions,” the two senators added.
The other companies received largely similar letters, questioning why they are hiring foreign workers while also conducting layoffs and whether they make a “good faith effort” to fill roles with Americans before turning to the H-1B visa program.
The senators also pressed the firms over how they are listing H-1B recruitment ads, whether American workers have been displaced by H-1B workers, how these employees’ salaries compare to their U.S. counterparts and whether the companies rely on outsourcing for hiring.
The H-1B program has come under scrutiny after President Trump signed a proclamation last week raising the application fee to $100,000. The order specifically cited concerns about U.S. tech firms receiving approvals for H-1B employees while also conducting large-scale layoffs.
Tech companies, including Amazon, Cognizant, Infosys, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, Intel and Tesla, were among the top recipients of new H-1B visa approvals in fiscal 2024, according to data from the National Foundation for American Policy.
The Trump administration has argued that the hefty new fee will drive these companies to hire American workers instead.
“If you’re going to train somebody, you’re going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land. Train Americans. Stop bringing in people to take our jobs, that’s our policy here,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Friday.
But some experts are skeptical of how this will play out, arguing that the H-1B program is a crucial pipeline for foreign talent in Silicon Valley.
