Estimated Time to Read: 10 minutes
Governor Greg Abbott (R) has directed Texas state agencies and public institutions of higher education to pause new H-1B visa petitions unless granted written approval by the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC). The freeze will remain in effect until the conclusion of the Texas Legislature’s 90th Regular Session on May 31, 2027. Existing H-1B workers employed by Texas agencies and universities are not affected by the order, and the directive does not apply to private-sector employers operating in the state.
In addition to halting new petitions, the order requires agencies and universities to submit detailed reports identifying how many H-1B visas they sponsor, the job classifications involved, countries of origin, visa expiration dates, and documentation demonstrating that qualified Texans were given a reasonable opportunity to apply for each position before a visa petition was filed.
In his letter to agency heads, Governor Abbott framed the directive as a matter of economic priority and public accountability, writing that, “State government must lead by example and ensure that employment opportunities, particularly those funded with taxpayer dollars, are filled by Texans first.” He further emphasized that the H-1B program “was created to supplement the United States’ workforce, not to replace it.”
The stated purpose of the pause is to allow time for legislative review, federal reform, and additional scrutiny of how state institutions use the program. The policy question, however, is whether the mechanism chosen aligns with the problem Texas is attempting to solve.
The Governor’s action followed growing public attention to Texas’s use of H-1B visas at public institutions, including comments by State Representative Brian Harrison, who noted in late 2025 that Texas ranked among the top states nationally for H-1B usage. Harrison raised these concerns publicly prior to the issuance of the Governor’s directive and called for additional oversight of hiring practices at public universities.
What the H-1B Visa Program Is and Why It Faces Populist Scrutiny
The H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations that typically require at least a bachelor’s degree, including engineering, medicine, computer science, advanced research, and higher education. For most private employers, the program is capped annually and routinely oversubscribed, with visas allocated through a lottery system.
Over time, the H-1B program has come under sustained scrutiny in populist political circles. Critics argue that it enables employers to replace domestic workers with lower-paid foreign labor or suppress wages by increasing labor supply. These concerns are often less about the mechanics of the program itself and more about broader anxieties surrounding globalization, immigration, and perceived elite decision-making that prioritizes efficiency over domestic labor stability.
In Texas, this skepticism has been amplified by several converging factors. High-profile layoffs in the technology sector, frustration with federal border enforcement failures, and growing distrust of national institutions have blurred distinctions between illegal immigration, legal employment-based visas, and broader labor-market trends. As a result, H-1B visas have become a symbolic proxy for grievances that extend well beyond the program’s actual design or usage.
The Role of the H-1B Visa Program in the Texas Workforce
Texas public universities, academic medical centers, and research institutions rely on the H-1B visa program to recruit professors, researchers, physicians, engineers, and other highly specialized professionals. Texas consistently ranks among the top states for H-1B usage, reflecting the size and complexity of its economy and the concentration of advanced research, medical training, and innovation-driven industries.
Many of the positions filled through this program require credentials, clinical specialization, or research expertise that cannot be readily sourced from the domestic labor pool, particularly in rural areas or highly specialized fields. Faculty recruitment, medical residencies, and advanced research projects often operate in national or global labor markets rather than local ones.
The Governor’s order does not revoke existing visas, but it pauses access to this hiring pipeline unless state officials grant an exception. For institutions already competing nationally for scarce talent, the freeze introduces uncertainty that may affect long-term planning, grant funding, and institutional competitiveness.
Worker Protection Claims and Labor Displacement
A central justification for the freeze is the protection of Texas workers from displacement. That concern resonates politically, but it rests on assumptions about how H-1B labor functions in practice. One common claim is that H-1B workers are effectively captive to a single employer, allowing institutions to suppress wages or displace domestic workers without meaningful competition.
Labor-market data undermine this assumption. Over the past two decades, H-1B workers have changed employers more than 1.1 million times nationwide. Tens of thousands switch jobs each year, and in recent years, more than one-third of new H-1B employment has consisted of workers changing jobs rather than new foreign hires.
In labor economics, worker mobility is one of the primary mechanisms by which wages rise and exploitation is constrained. Workers who can change jobs are better positioned to negotiate pay, leave poor working conditions, and respond to market signals. The data indicate that H-1B workers exhibit meaningful job mobility, contradicting claims that they are locked into exploitative arrangements.
For Texas agencies and universities that already operate in competitive labor markets, freezing access to a mobile, high-skill workforce does not meaningfully address worker-protection concerns. Instead, it restricts hiring flexibility in sectors where labor shortages are structural rather than cyclical.
Immigration, Welfare Use, and the Taxpayer Narrative in Texas
Another justification often raised in immigration debates is concern over the strain on public resources. Per-capita welfare data complicate that narrative. On an individual basis, immigrants consume significantly less welfare and entitlement spending than native-born Americans. In 2023, immigrants used roughly one-quarter less welfare and entitlement benefits per capita than natives, while noncitizens consumed the least of all.
The largest spending differences are driven by Social Security and Medicare, programs overwhelmingly utilized by older native-born populations rather than working-age immigrants. Immigrants are less likely to enter the welfare system, less likely to remain on it long term, and less likely to age into the most expensive entitlement programs.
This distinction matters for Texas, which has no state income tax and comparatively limited means-tested benefits. Framing foreign workers as a fiscal burden does not align with observed consumption patterns, particularly for noncitizen workers who are ineligible for most federal benefits for many years, if ever.
Lifetime Fiscal Impact and Why High-Skill Workers Are Different
Short-term welfare usage does not capture long-term fiscal impact. Lifetime fiscal analyses provide a more complete picture. A 2024 study examining the lifetime fiscal contribution of immigrants finds that the average immigrant reduces the federal budget deficit over their lifetime, while the average native-born American imposes a substantial net cost.
Age and education are decisive factors. Young and highly educated immigrants are among the most fiscally beneficial populations in the country. Immigrants with college or graduate degrees who arrive before middle age consistently pay far more in taxes than they receive in government benefits. Each immigrant under the age of 35 with a graduate degree is estimated to reduce the federal deficit by more than $1 million in net present value.
H-1B workers overwhelmingly fall into this category. Analyses further estimate that expanding the H-1B program would reduce federal deficits by tens of billions of dollars annually. While Texas does not control federal fiscal policy, these findings matter when evaluating whether high-skill foreign workers represent a liability or an asset to taxpayers.
Medicare, Entitlement Sustainability, and a Misplaced Policy Lever
Concerns about long-term entitlement sustainability are legitimate. Medicare is projected to become insolvent under current law by the mid-2030s, driven by demographic aging, rising healthcare costs, and a declining worker-to-beneficiary ratio. Research examining immigration and Medicare sustainability has warned that large-scale amnesty combined with expanded entitlement eligibility could impose significant long-term costs on the system.
Vance Ginn, president of Ginn Economic Consulting and a board member of Texas Policy Research, has emphasized this distinction clearly in his work on immigration and entitlement reform, noting that, “The real fiscal risk comes from expanding eligibility for unsustainable entitlement programs without reform, not from younger, working-age immigrants who are contributing to the tax base for decades before ever drawing benefits.” This framing underscores the importance of separating workforce policy from entitlement design.
H-1B workers are decades away from Medicare eligibility and contribute payroll taxes during the period when Medicare faces its most acute funding pressures. Freezing access to high-skill labor at Texas agencies does nothing to address Medicare’s structural imbalance and risks conflating future federal entitlement policy with present-day workforce needs.
Texas Workforce Policy Is Not Federal Entitlement Policy
The Governor’s directive operates entirely within the realm of state workforce policy. Medicare and Social Security are federal programs governed by federal law. Using entitlement risk to justify restrictions on state hiring misaligns the policy tool with the problem being cited.
Texas benefits disproportionately from attracting younger, working-age professionals who delay entitlement usage and strengthen the tax base. High-skill foreign workers help stabilize payroll tax flows and support economic growth during the decades when entitlement systems are under the greatest strain. Restricting access to this labor pool addresses neither demographic aging nor entitlement design.
Symbolic Action Versus Targeted Reform
Governor Abbott’s order reflects real political pressures and legitimate concerns about accountability. The reporting requirements may produce useful transparency regarding how state institutions use H-1B visas. Transparency alone, however, does not resolve whether the policy response is proportionate or well-targeted.
Targeting H-1B visas in Texas agencies and universities risks substituting visibility for precision. The evidence suggests that high-skill foreign workers are mobile, fiscally positive, and integrated into competitive labor markets. Pausing this workforce pipeline does not resolve labor shortages, entitlement stress, or fiscal imbalance. It risks constraining institutions that already struggle to recruit specialized talent.
What Texas Lawmakers Should Consider Next
The data collected under the Governor’s directive may inform future legislative action. As lawmakers evaluate whether to codify, modify, or reverse aspects of the freeze, the evidence points toward differentiation rather than blanket restriction.
Texas workforce policy could emphasize transparency, wage competition, and credential validation without broadly freezing access to high-skill labor. Aligning policy tools with actual sources of labor scarcity and fiscal risk would better serve both taxpayers and public institutions.
Conclusion on the Texas H-1B Freeze and Policy Alignment
Governor Greg Abbott’s H-1B directive represents a consequential intervention in Texas workforce policy. While framed as a measure to protect workers and taxpayers, a broader review of the evidence raises questions about whether high-skill foreign workers are being asked to shoulder responsibility for problems rooted in federal entitlement design, demographic change, and political symbolism.
Immigrants, particularly noncitizens and high-skill workers, consume less welfare, delay entitlement usage, and contribute disproportionately to tax revenues. H-1B workers are not indentured, not immobile, and not a fiscal liability. Long-term fiscal challenges such as Medicare insolvency stem from structural policy choices, not from the presence of working-age professionals employed by Texas institutions.
As Texas considers next steps, aligning workforce policy with the actual sources of fiscal risk and economic strength will be essential. Doing so would protect taxpayers, preserve competitiveness, and avoid confusing symbolic action with sound governance.
Texas Policy Research relies on the support of generous donors across Texas.
If you found this information helpful, please consider supporting our efforts! Thank you!
