Media Hits: What's the Relationship Between Layoffs and H-1B?

During my recent appearance on War Room Battleground with Natalie Winters, we discussed a troubling pattern that demands urgent attention: the simultaneous occurrence of massive tech layoffs and the continued importation of foreign workers through the H-1B visa program. The numbers tell a story that corporate America and policymakers would prefer to keep buried.

From 2022 to 2025, U.S.-based tech companies have eliminated 404,000 jobs through layoffs and cuts. During this exact same period, from October 1, 2022, through October 1, 2025, the United States welcomed roughly 450,000 new H-1B visa workers into our economy. On top of that, the United States has continued approving new H-1B visa petitions for the next fiscal year as well, bringing the total of approved new H-1B petitions to around 570,000. This isn't a coincidence—it's a calculated strategy that has been displacing American workers since 1990.

The corporate narrative blames artificial intelligence for these layoffs, but there's absolutely no proof that AI is driving this displacement. What we do know is that the H-1B visa program has systematically replaced American white-collar professionals, and it's no longer limited to tech workers. Accountants, back-office operations staff, and countless other professionals are being pushed aside through a well-orchestrated process: American workers train their H-1B replacements with the threat of not receiving severance pay and through "knowledge transfer," then watch as those jobs be subsequently offshored to India.

The absurdity of our current approach becomes clear when we consider China's success with artificial intelligence. Ask China how many H-1B visas they needed to leapfrog America in AI development - the answer is ZERO. They invested in their own people, their own educational systems, and their own technological infrastructure, albeit all of it stripped from the West and Japan.

Meanwhile, America continues to hollow out its domestic talent pipeline in favor of cheap foreign labor with the same zeal it hollowed out its manufacturing base.

This week's approval of another 120,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2026 demonstrates that our leaders haven't learned from this destructive pattern. While American families struggle with unemployment and underemployment, we're actively importing their replacements.

As we discussed earlier this week on Daniel Horowitz’s CR Podcast, the problem extends beyond corporate boardrooms into our educational institutions. A recent examination of Gannon University's Computer Science Master's program commencement revealed that virtually every graduate was a male international student from South Asia. This isn't an isolated incident—many universities now function as visa mills, openly promoted by consultants as pathways to American work permits and permanent residency.

As Natalie Winters noted during our discussion, reading "Sold Out" by John Miano and Michelle Malkin alongside congressional hearings reveals the extent of deception surrounding the H-1B program. The American people have been systematically lied to about this program's purpose and impact. What was sold as a solution to fill genuine skill gaps has become a mechanism for corporate cost-cutting at the expense of American workers.

John Miano's litigation work on behalf of the Institute for Sound Public Policy continues to expose the advertising and hiring discrimination that American tech workers face from multinational companies. His legal challenges reveal how dozens of major corporations systematically favor H-1B workers over equally qualified Americans.

The correlation between these 404,000 American job losses and 570,000 new H-1B approvals isn't merely statistical—it represents a fundamental betrayal of American workers. While families lose their livelihoods, corporations profit from wage suppression and government-subsidized labor displacement.

This isn't about anti-immigration sentiment; it's about economic justice and national sovereignty. America should prioritize developing its own talent, investing in its own workers, and building technological capabilities that don't depend on displacing citizens with cheaper alternatives.

The time for an honest conversation about H-1B reform is long overdue. American workers deserve better than a system that trains their own replacements.

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John Miano is scheduled to appear on War Room with Natalie Winters Friday, May 23rd between the hours of 10:00 AM and Noon.