According to US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Donald Trump administration has chosen 120 and 141 H-1B card applications for 2026. This is the lowest since 2021, when H-1B became a controversial subject perhaps before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. Elon Musk and the Make America Great Again movement had ideological differences on the subject, with former-MAGA campaigners like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer advocating for H-1B changes and increasing the seal, while Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer both claimed that H-1B may get stopped and Americans may be hired. The visa program under the H-1B immigration allows US businesses to employ highly skilled immigrants from abroad. Donald Trump stated that he favors a raise in the H-1B helmet, but USIS data indicates that nearly two-thirds of applications were turned down because of the lower monthly H-1B cap. Every year, the immigration support makes decisions by jackpot, and the company receives more H-1B digital licenses than the annual control allows. For those with advanced degrees from a US school, the yearly H-1B control is 65, 000 plus a 20 000 deduction. Employers have surpassed the limit every year for the past 20 years. For 2026, USCIS received 343, 981 ready licenses, a drop of 27 % from 470, 342 for FY 2025. According to a Forbes article, higher immigration charges were to blame for the decline in licenses. The cost of registering an H-1B for FY 2026 increased from$ 10 to$ 215 as a result of a Biden administration fee rule, according to the report.
Year-by-year information on H-1B licenses. ( Photo credit: USCIS )
Some of the largest recipients of the H-1B card program are still some of the fields in which systems, finance, and academia are located. Leading companies like Amazon, Google, and Meta received countless H-1B permits in 2024. Tesla, led by Elon Musk, also used the system to recruit lots of qualified workers into the US. “H-1B card numbers for FY 2026: Despite widespread software cuts and voting unrest, the Trump team maintains its position: 120, 141 NEW H-1Bs were chosen for FY 2026. Despite layoffs, demand is still high, a surefire sign that US workers are being replaced, according to the X manage posted by US Tech Workers.
