Tech companies in the United States have insisted repeatedly that they need high-skilled foreign workers through the H-1B program, but the visa is coming under greater scrutiny as claims circulate that American-born graduates are being pushed out of the high-paying sector.

While Big Tech firms lay off thousands of workers — often specifically noting to investors the efficiencies in AI that allow them to reduce headcount — many of those same companies are still submitting H-1B applications, be they new visa holders or renewals, prompting further outcry from skeptics of the program who want far stricter policies from an administration that rode to power on bold immigration promises.

"I don't think you can disentangle these, they have reinforcing effects," Ron Hira, an associate professor at Howard University and long-time H-1B critic, told Newsweek of the factors impacting American computer science and engineering majors.

"Nobody knows how much the AI is actually impacting, how much offshore is impacting, the depression and labor demand, but not just H-1B but also OPT [Optional Practical Training], they're all competing for a shrinking labor demand and so that has major impacts on the wages and job opportunities for recent graduates."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5759597&forum_id=2E#49164782)