Apple Park in Cupertino (Photo: www.cupertino.org)
H-1B Visa Surge Displaces American Tech Workers as Foreign-Born Talent Dominates Silicon Valley
Two-thirds of Silicon Valley’s nearly 400,000 tech jobs are held by foreign-born workers
By Megan Barth, May 26, 2026 1:39 pm
A sweeping May 2026 RealClearInvestigations report paints a stark picture of foreign dominance in one of America’s most vital economic engines. Two-thirds of Silicon Valley’s nearly 400,000 tech jobs are held by foreign-born workers. India-born employees account for 23 percent and China-born for 18 percent–together outnumbering U.S.-born workers at just 34 percent, according to a 2025 Joint Venture Silicon Valley report.
This transformation extends to the C-suites. Major companies are now led by foreign-born executives: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, IBM’s Arvind Krishna, Intel’s Lip-Bu Tan (Malaysian-born), YouTube’s Neal Mohan, and T-Mobile US’s Srinivas Gopalan — many from India. Silicon Valley, pioneered in American garages by Jobs, Hewlett, Packard, Noyce, and Moore, has gone global at the expense of domestic workers.
The economics are compelling for corporations.
Foreign software developers, who comprise 38 percent of H-1B visas, earn roughly 30 percent less than Americans. Harvard economist George J. Borjas estimates companies save nearly $100,000 per H-1B worker over the standard six-year period. This “redistributes wealth from those who compete with immigrants to those who use immigrants,” Borjas has written, fueling Big Tech profits and stock surges while sidelining mid-career American professionals, like “Mary.”
Veteran Silicon Valley marketer “Mary” had the experience, the resume, and the skills, with stints at Google and Cisco. Yet after two years of relentless job hunting, she remains unemployed. Her story is emblematic of a broken system: she was ordered by her Indian-born CEO to train her lower-paid foreign replacement before being laid off.
“I had experience. I should have walked right into these corporate jobs, but I didn’t,” Mary told RealClearInvestigations. “Why? Because Silicon Valley is flooded with people who work for two-thirds of the price, or even half price.”
Mary, who asked to be identified only by her first name, sees herself as a casualty of the H-1B visa program run amok– a program originally intended to fill genuine shortages of highly skilled American workers but now widely criticized as a pipeline for cheaper foreign labor that displaces U.S. talent.
In 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services approved a record 406,348 H-1B visas, up from 275,317 in 2015, with 70 percent issued to Indians. Top users included Amazon (over 13,000 applications), Meta, Microsoft, Google, and Tata Consultancy Services.
Approximately 700,000 people currently live and work in the U.S. in H-1B status, according to a National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) FY 2025 analysis
Layoff patterns reveal the displacement: Google cut 951 U.S. employees in 2024 while adding 1,058 H-1B workers; Apple laid off 735 but hired 864 new H-1B employees; Microsoft shed 3,426 workers from 2022-2024 while bringing in 3,259 H-1B hires. A 2023 Economic Policy Institute analysis found the top 30 H-1B employers added over 34,000 new visa workers while laying off at least 85,000.
Critics say the program’s design invites abuse. Companies face minimal requirements to prove they cannot find qualified Americans. “Prevailing wage” rules rely on manipulable regional averages. H-1B workers, often dependent on employers for green card sponsorship, create a captive, lower-cost workforce less likely to demand raises or switch jobs, a dynamic some compare to indentured servitude.
Hiring has grown “tribal,” according to Kevin Lynn of the Institute for Sound Public Policy: “Professionalism doesn’t exist in these IT departments anymore… when you look at the hiring, it becomes very tribal — India versus the rest of the world.” Engineer Stephen Vivien described Indian H-1B workers at Google sharing interview questions to help each other. A New Jersey jury recently awarded $8.4 million against Cognizant Technology Solutions in a discrimination case involving bias against non-Indian workers.
Even Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), whose district includes much of Silicon Valley, has acknowledged problems. He has called for reforms to prevent corporations from displacing American workers with “cheap, foreign labor who they can easily control and underpay,” while preserving pathways for truly exceptional talent. Khanna stresses proper compensation and restoring the program to its original intent.
The Trump administration’s new $100,000 fee for new H-1B workers from abroad has slowed some inflows, though loopholes via foreign students on Optional Practical Training persist. Immigration attorneys report companies shifting focus to workers already in the U.S.
As reported by the Globe, Rep. Eli Crane’s (R-AZ) End H-1B Visa Abuse Act of 2026, has proposed a three-year moratorium on new visas. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) co-sponsored the measure, warning that California workers “have borne the brunt of program abuse.”
The human cost is profound. Displaced Americans like Mary face not just unemployment but the erosion of the California dream they helped build.
Mid-career engineers, marketers, and developers, often with families, mortgages, and roots in the state, find themselves uncompetitive against a system that rewards lower wages and networked hiring over experience and loyalty.
As Congress debates reform, the stakes for California’s economy and its American workforce could not be higher. Once the cradle of native-born innovation, Silicon Valley now risks becoming a cautionary tale of policy that prioritizes corporate savings and global labor pools over domestic talent.
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It’s disappointing that the Trump administration hasn’t done more to halt the H-1B Visa scam? Big tech has ruined the livability and affordability of the San Francisco Bay Area and big tech should relocate to India where most of the tech workers come from?
H1 visas. I fail to see why companies are permitted to hire foreigners in lieu of American graduates. THE policy of the US Zmust be AMERICANS first. pThen and. ONLY then should foreigners be considered. This policy must be criminally backed by the US Government.
Was last in Silicon Valley nine years ago, and was HORRIFIED at the condition of the area…
Waist-high weeds and trash EVERYWHERE, in the Saratoga/Sunnyvale area, where I have family. It had been several years since I’d visited them and the area used to be nicely maintained and kept up, but the third-world values have migrated to Silicon Valley along with the H1-B’s that are willing to work for cheap, live five+ to an apartment and send their paychecks back to Mumbai or Chennai every month….
Unfortunately, the “tribal hiring” has a 20-plus year headstart as this started in the late ’90’s and is WELL entrenched in I.T. departments STATEWIDE as my current company’s I.T. staff is 90% foreign-born, most from India.
Here’s the problem with HB1 visas.
They are usually hired to bring in a certain technical skill set that isnt easily found. Once they are in these large organizations, they get prioritized because they are minorities and younger and next thing you know, they have moved out of technical roles, into more mainstream leadership roles that should have gone to Americans.
What technical skill is that? I contend they don’t even bother looking. It’s just an excuse.
It’s not just so called big tech. These sub continent Indians and the like have infested our medical establishment . We now have CA’s that cannot take a correct blood pressure reading. And it’s being accepted.
2 years ago I went to an urgent care and the only person I could understand was the front counter receptionist. Staff all Indian. I was billed $250 all they did was refer me to an x-ray clinic. Provided no care they always weigh you and blood pressure to make it look like they’re doing something. My friend at Tahoe shuttled a disabled diabetic to her Nevada clinic 2X week for dialysis-$1800 per session that was 20 years ago. Everyone from top to bottom staff was Indian.
This fraud has gone on for decades. I watched Indians arrive with Java for Dummies books after claiming they were highly skilled. They don’t pay into Social Security and as Americans are displaced they go onto unemployment weakening our government programs. Indian managers only hire Indians. Chinese will often post “Mandarin required” in job postings to avoid hiring Americans. The South Bay is nearly all Chinese and East Bay is all Indian. Mexicans are being pushed out and Blacks are 100% gone from the area.
In the 1990s they figured out the Clinton administration did nothing if they walked away from their B-1 assignment. Maybe it’s changed but the outlaw “underground” economy they exploit is pervasive. The electronic products vendor I worked for in the East Bay was always undersold by a “Turban Bros” duo in University Ave. in Bekeley. No wonder they did not pay sales tax! They vamoosed back to India-but were back in business 2 years later a few doors down from their previous location. I saw this over & over, both the feds and local DAs pathetic and weak about enforcing anything.
I know many excellent programmers looking for work who have been pushed out of the industry by H1b-hiring outfits.
This is a shocking article. Laying off U.S. workers, and then hiring H1-B Visa workers shows a complete lack of ethics and morality. I guess I should have expected this considering that the tech companies are far left.
Initially H-1B Visa was started in 1990. The reason given was shortage of trained man power. Initially for 10+ years most Indian came were from prestigious universities and had experience of highly respected American and Indian companies (those were not in consulting). The massive influx of engineers in US brought down wages significantly. Typical pay for an Oracle DBA was 140 to 150 dollars per hour on W2 till 1999 or so. Heavy supply of H-1B visa brought it down to $60 or less in 2001 afterwards. The heavy supply of H-1B and L-1 is continued. Companies have offices in India where developer work 12 to 14 hours per day to get visa sponsorship. Once they come to ISA, they get green card. Why would companies hire American citizen or permanent residents. The shortage of trained American work narrative works well. Over supply of H-1B, H-4 Visa with EAD, L-1, F-1 Visa OPT, J-1 visa etc. help in bringing down wages. Now there is too much fraud. Most Indian come from only 2 states. They hire only who speak their languages (Telugu and Tamil). Most are from say tier 4 (worst) colleges.
Many/Most H1-B guest workers has fraudulent credentials. The IS won’t print the stories but they many are directly from India. Degree mills that sell diplomas. Purchased test results, engineers that cannot code and medical doctors that cannot even pass community college nursing exams. The corruption extends to American firms contracted to corrupt state governments like Oregon and California where state Medicare Advantage contractors buy credentials for those doctors who “treat” the overflow of Medicare & Medicaid patients.
You are one to check my whistleblowing cases against Oregon. I was the DBA for Centene’s subsidiaries Trillium CHP, Health Net, etc. I not only witnessed this, I took records and filed them with both HHS and CMS. I can have records sent to you. Shit. This to prevent this from being oublished. It is a notice to the moderator that is holding my comment pending.
They really did sell HIV, STD, counseling & other medical records. They fired me decreased their DBA’s with Indian H1-B guest workers. The problems with that program go far beyond just taking jobs from Americans. They pose a danger to the country.
I was in Berkeley during the 90s “dot com boom”. Media loaded with tales of “we can’t find anyone to hire”. I was in copy shop in Berkeley (one of the few run by non-Indians without a color xerox enlargement of a $20 bill in the window!) someone left resume on copy machine. Perusing it at check out I commented to owner “this resume is so good I wonder why he’s having to look” he told me “you would not believe what we see: PhDs, MS, LLBs galore”. I found Professor Norman Matloff UC Davis online the ONLY academic researching this! He published extensively, great deal of it online still. We corresponded he verified how many US tech people displaced. He got all of 5 seconds on one PBS report; they did NOT report Disney fired 600 US citizens made them train their replacements. Later Prof Matloff spoke on Cal campus on “bubble burst” and labor market NO media there. He’s still the lone academic shining light on this and he’s not an economist. Those departments won’t go near this.