Center for American Progress

Donate

Center for American Progress

The Trump Administration’s Hostility to Legal Immigration Harms America’s Global Leadership in Innovation
Report

The Trump Administration’s Hostility to Legal Immigration Harms America’s Global Leadership in Innovation

By targeting legal immigration, the United States is signaling to the best and brightest talent around the world that they are unwelcome, harming U.S. leadership in innovation that has strengthened the economy for all Americans.

Advancing Racial Equity and Justice, Competitiveness, Economy, +4 More

Media Contact

[email protected]

Government Affairs

[email protected]

[email protected]

In this article
Researchers at a biopharmaceutical company conduct lab tests.
Researchers at a biopharmaceutical company conduct lab tests focused on fighting COVID-19 in San Diego, California, on May 22, 2020. (Getty/AFP/Ariana Drehsler)

Introduction and summary

For decades, the United States has been the world’s preeminent superpower, a position driven by its role as an innovation hub in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Through advances in new industries and technologies, U.S. innovation fuels economic growth and creates new jobs that benefit the American workforce.1 This global leadership in innovation has been attributable in part to America’s unparalleled ability to attract rich and diverse talent from all over the world.

Immigrant stories of success and innovation are woven intrinsically into the fabric of American history. For example, Sergey Brin escaped the Soviet Union, co-founded Google, and changed the way the world processed information; Katalin Karikó, an immigrant from Hungary, co-developed the mRNA vaccine technology that helped the United States and the world respond to the COVID-19 pandemic; and Levi Strauss, a Bavarian immigrant, created the quintessentially American blue jeans.2 Several major tech and telecommunications companies are led or founded by immigrants, and immigrants founded or co-founded an estimated 60 percent of the top U.S.-based artificial intelligence (AI) companies.3 Yet this dominance in innovation is being threatened by the Trump administration’s shortsighted anti-immigration policies.

This field is hidden when viewing the form

Default Opt Ins

This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form

Variable Opt Ins

This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form

The administration has sought to undermine the legal immigration system to fulfill its anti-immigration agenda, which hurts the U.S. economy and flies in the face of Americans’ growing support for legal immigration.4 These unprecedented actions—including detaining international students for expressing their opinions, revoking visas, attacking higher education institutions, and issuing new travel restrictions—have sent warning signals to prospective international students, researchers, and innovators worldwide that the United States is not a place that welcomes their skills to build their careers and strengthen the American economy.5 The administration’s actions are having negative impacts across the country, including reducing Americans’ ability to access physicians by preventing foreign doctors from coming to the United States; threatening the educational and social benefits and billions in economic contributions that international students bring to the United States each year; and pushing the world’s brightest to seek a future in other countries to study, research, and work.6

These anti-immigration policies exacerbate the Trump administration’s broader attacks on American innovation.7 While the administration makes boastful claims about making America’s economy more powerful, its actions are actually hurting U.S. innovation.8 The administration is making devastating cuts to federal funding for scientific research and development (R&D) and attempting to freeze funding for colleges and universities, rather than prioritizing solutions that spur innovation and prepare American workers for new types of work.9 In addition, the administration has falsely framed its immigration policies as seeking to serve the interests of American workers.10 Overall, through its anti-immigration rhetoric, restrictive policies, and unchecked use of power, along with other anti-worker policies, the Trump administration is weakening America’s long-term competitiveness and jeopardizing jobs and opportunities for American workers.11

This report examines the Trump administration’s actions targeting talented immigrants and the avenues that allow them to work in the United States, underscoring the crucial role that immigrants play in strengthening America’s leadership in innovation. The report explains the harmful consequences of the administration’s anti-immigration actions on America’s global strength in innovation by describing how the United States is ceding its power to attract global talent to other countries, chilling America’s long-standing role as a beacon for current and future innovators, and harming America’s AI leadership. Instead of restrictive, punitive policies that damage America’s reputation and harm the U.S. economy, the country needs the executive branch to work with Congress to pursue smart policies that benefit American workers and create a better, modern legal immigration system for the United States that fosters innovation, incubates new ideas, supports cutting-edge research, and boosts America’s competitive advantage.12

The Trump administration’s actions attacking legal immigration threaten American innovation

Immigrants have made advances for U.S. innovation despite the country’s archaic immigration system, which was last updated 35 years ago.13 However, instead of working with Congress to fix the system’s flaws, the Trump administration has taken extreme steps to restrict legal immigration to the United States, threatening the future of American innovation. These actions are making it harder and less attractive for foreign nationals to come to the United States to study and contribute their work, skills, and ideas to critical industries.

Targeting international students and researchers and restricting new arrivals

The Trump administration is targeting international students and researchers at universities across the country by going after their ability to lawfully study and work in the United States. For example, the U.S. Department of State has revoked more than 6,000 student visas.14 The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has also attempted to terminate more than 4,700 Student Exchange and Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records of international students across the country in an effort to end their ability to lawfully study at American universities.15 Many of these students quickly piled up legal victories against the administration, as judges in multiple states put temporary restraining orders in place halting the administration’s actions.16 Amid pressure, the administration reinstated the SEVIS records, effectively restoring the lawful status of thousands of affected students.17

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also detained multiple international students and researchers across the country for lawfully expressing their opinions.18 These detainees include Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University graduate student researching the relationship between social media and child development, who was detained for simply expressing views in an opinion piece in her college newspaper.19 A 25-year DHS veteran told The Washington Post he had “taken violent drug traffickers into custody with less overt intimidation and haste” than the way Öztürk was arrested.20 Federal Judge William G. Young, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, scathingly rebuked the Trump administration’s unconstitutional actions against noncitizens such as Öztürk, which he found were taken primarily “on account of their First Amendment protected political speech” and sought to “chill the rights to freedom of speech and peacefully to assemble.”21

The Trump administration’s approach is to announce flashy policies that favor the wealthy without lifting a finger to actually fix the broken immigration system.

Furthermore, in the face of the administration’s efforts to step up its indiscriminate mass detention, some immigrants in STEM fields—including a mechanical engineering student at the University of Alabama and a clinical psychology graduate from Harvard University—have opted to leave the country.22 In addition, DHS also detained a Russian scientist working in cancer research at Harvard when she arrived in the country for not declaring to customs that she was carrying frog embryos for her lab’s work, an omission that would normally result in a fine but, in this case, led to the U.S. Department of Justice filing multiple federal criminal charges against her after a judge ordered her release from immigration detention.23 These types of enforcement actions targeting students and researchers without a clear public safety rationale are causing real, pervasive fears among foreigners that they too could be arrested or detained, harming the country’s long-standing reputation as an attractive destination for innovators.24

The Trump administration also implemented new travel restrictions banning people from 12 countries from coming to the United States on visas and partially banning those from seven other countries; and it is reportedly considering adding 36 more countries to this list.25 The administration is also policing the speech of prospective foreign students by requiring applicants for student and exchange visitor visas to make their private social media accounts public so that consular officers can screen their posts, a process that could stifle speech and slow down visa processing without meaningfully enhancing security.26 The impact of these travel and visa restrictions has meant that approximately 1,000 foreign medical residents have been unable to come to the United States, risking an increase in physician shortages in rural areas, which could exacerbate the negative impact on rural hospitals caused by the massive cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.27 These counterproductive actions disregard the contributions that these immigrants can make to the United States as students, researchers, and professionals in their respective fields.

How do international students navigate through the U.S. immigration system?

Immigrants who seek to enter the United States through existing legal channels face a lengthy and uncertain process to translate their skills, education, and work into a durable status.28

Take this example of how America’s imperfect immigration system actually works in practice for international students:29 An international student admitted to an American university to pursue an undergraduate degree focusing on AI has to demonstrate that they intend to return to their home country after graduating to secure a student visa, even if as a teenager they do not know their future plans.30 If they are able to secure a visa, after graduating from a U.S. college or university, to be able to work legally in the United States beyond a short duration, an employer has to apply for them to work via a highly competitive lottery for a limited number of temporary work visas, for which the employer does not have to first rule out that an American worker is available to perform the job.31 But for that same immigrant worker to eventually become a lawful permanent resident after procuring a work visa, the employer then has to demonstrate that no American is available to do that job.32

After that flawed process is complete years after they first entered the United States, if the immigrant worker finally qualifies for an employment-based green card after jumping through multiple hoops, they may still have to wait for many years to obtain a green card because the number of green cards authorized by Congress each year has not been updated since 1990, while the demand for green cards has grown, creating huge backlogs.33

Attacking universities and undermining immigrants’ ability to work legally

Along with targeting foreign nationals who study and work in science, technology, and other innovative industries, the Trump administration is also going after higher education institutions and processes that enable international students to legally study and work in the United States.34 As part of a broader attack on U.S. universities, the administration targeted Harvard University in an unprecedented move that attempted to both end the university’s ability to enroll foreign students—stating that existing students should transfer to another school or leave the country—and suspend the entry of new foreign students.35 These attempted restrictions on Harvard have been halted by a federal judge.36 The administration also issued subpoenas demanding that Harvard turn over data on its international student population, placing the confidential information of thousands of students at risk.37

In another unprecedented act of government overreach, the Trump administration asked nine prominent universities to sign a pledge agreeing to several of its political priorities including capping international student enrollment to no more than 15 percent and agreeing to turn over international student data upon request in exchange for preferential access to federal funds.38 At present, seven of the nine universities declined to sign the compact, with only the University of Texas showing openness to signing it.39

The Trump administration’s recent anti-immigration policies are making it harder to attract and retain highly motivated immigrants.

Additionally, the administration is taking a sledgehammer to long-standing existing avenues for foreign graduates to legally work in the United States using the skills they have acquired at American universities. The new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has stated his intent to end the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program.40 This program, which has existed in some form since 1947, is one of the few avenues that allows graduating foreign students to remain in the United States legally for a limited time—up to 12 months, and up to 36 months for STEM graduates—to gain further experience and work in their field of study, enabling them to contribute skills acquired at American universities to the U.S. economy.41

OPT is a limited program; it provides no direct path to a work visa or permanent residency, and it can be improved so that employers who hire students on OPT do not get a tax break.42 But without creating an alternative for international students to stay in the United States after graduation, ending the OPT program would make the United States a much less attractive option for talented international future innovators. In the program’s absence, American employers would have few ways to legally hire international graduates who gain skills and knowledge at American universities.43 Instead of ending OPT and weakening the talent pool of U.S.-educated innovators, the Trump administration should work with Congress to pass legislation to prevent corporations from using the program to get a tax break. It should also expand opportunities for foreign students who graduate from American universities with in-demand skills to remain in the United States and contribute to the economy.

Finally, the administration’s attacks have extended to the children of long-term workers, jeopardizing their ability to receive green cards. In August 2025, the Trump administration overturned a 2023 policy that allowed foreign-born children of immigrant parents to preserve their eligibility for permanent residence as dependents on their parents’ approved immigrant visa petitions, even after they turned 21.44 The updated policy guidance from the Trump administration means children who have followed the rules and lived lawfully in the United States will now be at risk of losing their chance to become permanent residents after waiting in line for years.45 These children, who were raised and educated in the United States, are Americans in every sense except for their permanent U.S. immigration status being delayed through no fault of their own. They will now have to qualify for an alternative visa category to temporarily remain here with their families while starting over their green card application processes from scratch, which could take decades; or they will have to make the difficult decision to separate from their families and leave on their own. Doing away with commonsense policies that preserve family unity is unnecessary and cruel while reinforcing the administration’s message that immigrants and their talents are not welcome here.

America needs smarter visa reforms and better protections for American workers, not gimmicks to buy entry into America

Immigrant STEM workers must rely on a handful of temporary visa programs that often do not do enough to protect them from exploitation.46 These programs can also cause American workers to be displaced and result in lower wages for all workers, as unscrupulous employers are incentivized to take advantage of immigrant workers on unstable temporary visas rather than hire Americans.47 Despite long-standing bipartisan concern and reform efforts in Congress to prevent temporary work visa programs such as the H-1B visa from being abused, Congress has not passed meaningful fixes to these visa programs.48 But the Trump administration’s approach is to announce flashy policies that favor the wealthy without lifting a finger to actually fix the broken immigration system.49 Until Congress improves legal avenues to the United States, the flawed H-1B visa remains the primary way for immigrant professionals to legally work in the country.

The exorbitant $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions is one example of the administration’s incomplete and haphazard approach.50 If the administration really wanted to improve the visa program and make the system function better to benefit workers, it could intentionally target abusive employers so they would be unable to obtain the limited number of annual H-1B visas.51 However, the Trump administration instead chose to announce a flashy new fee for H-1B applications and issue sparse guidance and differing interpretations of how this new fee would be applied, causing confusion for workers on H-1B visas.52 These actions create a chaotic environment for critical fields in the American economy and do nothing to create durable policies to fix the broken immigration system. A blanket fee of $100,000 for all new petitions would render the visa program unaffordable for many responsible employers and prevent its legitimate use.53 For example, the impact of these exorbitant fees could adversely affect physicians with H-1B visas working in often underserved rural areas in states such as Iowa, North Dakota, and West Virginia.54 Universities and schools that use the H-1B visa program to hire talented faculty and teachers expressed deep concern over the fee hike hindering their ability to fill teaching roles in critical STEM fields.55

Another example of how the Trump administration is inappropriately favoring the wealthy is by allowing the rich to buy their way to a green card via the new “gold card” scheme, in which foreign nationals send $1 million in unrestricted funds to the U.S. Department of Commerce.56 This flashy gimmick is no substitute for the administration’s failure to work constructively with Congress to make the legal immigration system better—including by clearing the green card backlog for workers and families waiting in line for years and by making it easier for entrepreneurs and other talented workers who cannot afford the gold card to immigrate legally to the United States.57

Instead of pursuing policies that favor the wealthy at the expense of others, the Trump administration should work with Congress to reform temporary visa programs so they are not abused to harm American workers and exploit visa holders; and it must make it more straightforward for hardworking immigrants to transition from temporary, onerous visas to permanent residency.

The consequences of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and actions

America’s leadership in innovation has long depended on its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest.58 But as other countries move aggressively to recruit global talent, the Trump administration’s recent anti-immigration policies are making it harder to attract and retain highly motivated immigrants, risking the loss of these innovators to international competitors and undermining American innovation and competitiveness.

Competitors are moving to attract global talent

International students contribute to a country’s economy, advance research and innovation, provide a significant source of revenue for universities, and bring new ideas to educational institutions and employers after they graduate.59 Other countries recognize the need to attract and retain such talent. For instance, Canada recently launched its Global Skills Strategy, which features a faster and clearer path for employers to find well-matched immigrant workers.60 One of Canada’s programs, “Path to Canada,” specifically targets international students in the United States who are struggling to find viable visa options to work after graduation.61 In Spain, the University of the Balearic Islands is preparing to build a research institute to recruit American and other nations’ research and innovation talent.62 At the same time, China has launched efforts to recruit scientists and students affected by the Trump administration’s research funding cuts.63 By pushing Chinese scientists away from contributing their talents to the United States, the Trump administration is exacerbating a brain drain phenomenon from the United States that was already occurring.64

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Trump administration’s rhetoric is pushing away students who would otherwise want to study in America.65 Preliminary research estimated that up to 150,000 fewer international students would arrive at U.S. colleges and universities in the fall of 2025.66 This same research estimated that the drop in foreign student enrollment could lead to a loss of an estimated $7 billion and more than 60,000 jobs.67 A September 2025 report found a 22 percent decline in F-1 student visas issued in May 2025 compared with May 2024.68 Furthermore, survey data show prospective international students are reconsidering the United States as an academic destination, threatening nearly $44 billion in economic contributions and more than 378,000 jobs that international students support nationwide.69

Prospective international students are reconsidering the United States as an academic destination, threatening nearly $44 billion in economic contributions and more than 378,000 jobs that international students support nationwide.

International students provide vital financial support to universities and local economies while also helping create jobs by paying for goods and services at college.70 At the same time, because they pay out-of-state tuition and fees and are largely ineligible for federal financial aid, their financial contributions sustain research, teaching, and infrastructure at universities, as well as help subsidize tuition for American students.71

Beyond these economic contributions, international students also enrich campuses and communities with their diverse perspectives, cultures, and experiences, helping foster collaboration and goodwill between the United States and other countries.72 In the classroom, international and American students learn alongside each other, engaging in a dynamic exchange of ideas and perspectives. This interaction allows American students to gain firsthand exposure to different cultures, languages, and perspectives, broadening their understanding of the world.73 International students also help increase the number of American students who pursue science and technology fields.74 Together, this diversity of experiences and viewpoints fosters creativity and drives innovation in key STEM industries. In fact, nearly half of all Ph.D.s and more than one-third of master’s degrees in STEM fields in the United States were awarded to international students in the 2021–22 academic year.75

Yet needless anti-immigration policies have been layered on top of existing problems that define the nation’s outdated system—such as visa caps and backlogs—causing talent to leave after graduation and effectively giving America’s competitors the talent it helped train.76

Trump administration actions will have a chilling effect on immigration to the United States, undermining U.S. competitiveness

America’s competitive edge is also at risk as the Trump administration’s anti-immigration actions send ripples of fear through fields of the economy that depend on highly skilled immigrant workers—many of whom are already here on temporary visas. Earlier in the year, Silicon Valley tech companies expressed concern for the future of their visa holder workers due to changing immigration policies under the Trump administration.77 These concerns were further exacerbated after the Trump administration recently proposed changes to the H-1B visa that prompted panic from current visa holders.78 In fields like AI, where demand for talent is anticipated to grow more than U.S. workers’ availability, the United States risks losing its competitive and innovative advantage to China—America’s chief global competitor.79 Notably, China is increasing its investments in scientific research and is likely already outpacing the United States; countries such as Canada and France are tailoring their immigration policies to attract skilled immigrants; and other countries such as the United Kingdom are offering attractive incentives to attract the next generation of AI students, workers, and entrepreneurs.80

The Trump administration’s anti-immigration approach harms the future of America’s AI leadership

The use of artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding, with demand for workers growing as AI continues to evolve and become integrated across industries, including health care, finance, and manufacturing.81 The Biden-Harris administration underscored the critical need for both AI software talent, which includes machine-learning engineers, software engineers, and research scientists, as well as hardware talent, who work on the physical AI infrastructure, such as data centers and chips.82 To help meet the growing demand for AI talent, President Joe Biden signed the “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” executive order in 2023.83 This order laid the groundwork to expand immigration pathways in an effort to attract the AI and tech talent that would help position the United States as a global leader in the field.84 The order also included a push for faster visa processing for international students and researchers studying and working in AI, a goal that complemented the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce backlogs in all immigration case processing at USCIS.85

However, when President Donald Trump took office, he revoked President Biden’s previous AI executive order and introduced his own AI strategy, which excludes any mention of highly skilled immigrants and international students who study and train in America and play a vital role in shaping AI in the country.86 Under the Trump administration, USCIS’s case backlog reached its highest level in at least a decade, as the administration has sought to undermine, not strengthen, legal immigration.87 Instead of building on actions that make it easier for international students and researchers to contribute to the AI sector, the Trump administration has made it harder for these immigrants to legally study and work in the United States, a move that undermines the country’s ability to stay competitive in the global AI race.

The United States faces a significant shortage of AI workers.88 Although more American students are graduating with computer science degrees, many have not been trained in the specialized skills to work in AI.89 In response to the shortage of workers with AI experience, businesses are creating upskilling and reskilling programs to help bridge the AI skills gap, and universities are incorporating AI into their curricula to prepare students to work with the technology.90 But without access to a large talent pool of skilled workers to build America’s AI technology and infrastructure, the United States risks losing the AI race.

In addition to training and preparing the American workforce to fill the AI workforce gap, immigrant talent is critical to building and advancing America’s AI workforce and spurring continued innovation. Immigrants have founded or co-founded top U.S. AI companies, and foreign nationals represent nearly half of all AI-related Ph.D. graduates.91 However, U.S. immigration laws make it difficult for AI professionals, including Ph.D. graduates, to stay in the country and enter the American workforce after they graduate; and the Trump administration’s counterproductive actions will likely worsen the problem.92 When top talent is forced to leave, they take their ideas, work ethic, and innovation with them, undermining U.S. leadership in AI.

To maximize the country’s potential at winning the global AI race, the United States must strengthen immigration pathways to retain top global talent while also investing in upskilling American workers to meet the demands of the AI economy.93 Working together, immigrants and American workers will ensure that the United States remains competitive, innovative, and secure in the global AI race.

See also

Conclusion

America needs constructive immigration policies that strengthen our economy and increase our competitive advantage, not the destructive actions of the Trump administration that harm the economy and our position as a global innovation powerhouse. In this fast-moving world, the United States should welcome the brightest minds—not push them to its competitors—to launch the next big breakthroughs that could create millions of jobs. It is counterproductive and economically damaging to create a hostile environment for highly qualified immigrants with the potential and entrepreneurial drive to advance American dominance in research, innovation, and technology.

For America’s economy to reach its full potential, the executive branch should work with Congress to meaningfully fix the nation’s outdated immigration system. The existing statutory framework for legal immigration—which has not been updated since 1990—is incredibly cumbersome for too many people who want to immigrate to the United States for employment; and it is not flexible enough to support the evolving labor needs of the U.S. economy. Fixing the immigration system requires increasing viable ways for the innovators of the future and their families to bring their talents to the United States.94 Enhancing our legal immigration system is a must, just as America needs new policies that strengthen and support working Americans, increase employment prospects of Americans, and improve overall working conditions to ensure a dynamic and secure economic future for the U.S. workforce.

By creating new constructive legal immigration opportunities and increasing investments in domestic education and training, lawmakers will enhance the country’s ability to attract the foreign students, researchers, and entrepreneurs who are currently being driven away while simultaneously investing in the future of the American workforce. These actions will help power the future growth of the American economy and ensure that the United States can remain the global leader in innovation for years to come.

Appendix: Examples of existing legal immigration pathways that affect innovation

There are a limited number of temporary and permanent visa pathways—avenues to stay, work, or study—that are available to immigrants and have an impact on innovation:95

  1. H-1B visa: The H-1B visa is a temporary work visa available to professionals who have a job offer from a U.S. employer to work in a “specialty occupation.”96 A limited number of new H-1B visas are available each fiscal year, with a congressionally mandated annual cap of 65,000 visas, plus an additional 20,000 visas for those with advanced U.S. degrees.97 In fiscal year 2024, there were nearly 400,000 H-1B applications approved, most of which were renewals.98 For years, the H-1B visa category has been oversubscribed, with demand for these visas far outweighing the supply.99 While it is the primary work visa for immigrant professionals and therefore extensively used by immigrant workers who advance the innovation economy, the H-1B program needs reform due to its misuse by outsourcing firms that have used the program to replace American workers with immigrant workers at substandard wages.100 Furthermore, the restrictive H-1B visa limits professional and entrepreneurship opportunities and provides inappropriate leverage to employers over their employees on these visas.101
  2. F-1 student visa and Optional Practical Training: The F-1 visa allows international students to study at accredited U.S. academic institutions provided they meet certain requirements, such as maintaining a full course of study and a foreign residence abroad and demonstrating the ability to support themselves financially.102 In 2024, more than 400,000 F-1 visas were issued to foreign nationals, and there were about 1.1 million international students in the United States.103 For several decades, U.S. law has allowed F-1 visa holders to apply for OPT, allowing them to stay and work full time in the United States temporarily and gain practical experience in their chosen area of study for one year after they graduate.104 Students in STEM fields may apply for a 24-month extension of their OPT.105 After their OPT expires, the options for students are limited: For example, they may qualify for another temporary visa, such as an H-1B visa, stay on a student visa and pursue another degree, or return home.106
  3. J-1 visa: The J-1 exchange visitor visa is for individuals to participate in cultural or other exchange programs, allowing them to work or study in the United States on a temporary basis.107 J-1 options include programs for professors, students, physicians, and research scholars.108 In 2021, the U.S. Department of State launched the Early Career STEM Research Initiative, which connected international researchers with host institutions.109 About 300,000 foreign visitors come to the United States with J-1 visas each year.110 Certain J-1 visa holders, including those who came for graduate medical education or training, must return to their home country for two years when they finish their program, unless they qualify for a waiver.111 This condition is challenging for international medical graduates looking to work in the United States because they are largely unable to serve in the country unless they use another program such as the Conrad 30 that can exempt them from the requirement.112
  4. Employment-based permanent immigrant visas: U.S. immigration law allows a limited number of individuals to receive lawful permanent residence in the United States—also known as a “green card”—annually based on their education, skills, and other qualifications.113 Only 140,000 permanent visas for immigrant workers are available each fiscal year, and their spouses and minor children are counted against this cap.114 Temporary visas such as the H-1B do not directly lead to permanent resident status, which is a separate and complex process.115 Backlogs for employment-based immigrant visas are lengthy and grew to a massive 1.8 million cases in 2023, with decadelong wait times for individuals from countries with many applicants, such as India and China.116 These green card backlogs prevent immigrant workers from achieving stability through permanent residency, prolonging their temporary statuses and leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by their employers due to their temporary, uncertain visa statuses.

Endnotes

  1. Jason E. Bordoff and others, “Promoting Opportunity and Growth through Science, Technology, and Innovation” (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 2006), available at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/200612technology.pdf.
  2. The Immigration Learning Center, “Sergey Brin,” available at https://www.ilctr.org/about-immigrants/immigrant-entrepreneurs/hall-of-fame/sergey-brin/ (last accessed November 2025); The Nobel Prize, “The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19,” Press release, October 2, 2023, available at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2023/press-release/; Levi’s, “About Us – Levi Strauss & Co. History,” available at https://www.levi.com/US/en_US/features/about-us (last accessed November 2025).
  3. Vishnu Kaimal, “Top ten immigrant CEOs in the US,” The American Bazaar, April 16, 2025, available at https://americanbazaaronline.com/2025/04/16/top-ten-immigrant-ceos-in-the-us-461861/; Times of India, “Two US giants appoint Indian-origin CEOs amid H-1 B visa fee hike: Who are Srinivas Gopalan and Rahul Goyal,” September 25, 2025, available at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/two-us-giants-appoint-indian-origin-ceos-amid-h-1b-visa-fee-hike-who-are-srinivas-gopalan-and-rahul-goyal/articleshow/124083563.cms; Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development, “Mr. Hans Vestberg,” available at https://www.broadbandcommission.org/commissioner/hans-vestberg/ (last accessed November 2025); Jeremy Neufeld and Lindsay Milliken, “Most of America’s Top AI Companies Were Founded by Immigrants,” Institute for Progress, August 16, 2025, available at https://ifp.org/most-of-americas-top-ai-companies-were-founded-by-immigrants/.
  4. Adriana Gomez Licon and Amelia Thomson-Deveaux, “What Americans think about legal immigration, according to a new poll,” Associated Press, September 23, 2025, available at https://apnews.com/article/legal-immigration-poll-trump-deportation-economy-31aa30b5a520bb88bb67628ac0394bd9.
  5. Martin Kaste, “Masked officers in Tufts student arrest raise fears among immigrants and bystanders,” NPR, March 28, 2025, available at https://www.npr.org/2025/03/28/nx-s1-5342428/tufts-student-arrest-raises-questions-about-masked-ice-agents; Devan Cole and Holmes Lybrand, “‘Full-throated assault on the First Amendment’: Judge rips into Trump over attempts to deport pro-Palestinian academics,” CNN, September 30, 2025, available at https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/first-amendment-judge-young-donald-trump-deportation-pro-palestinian-protesters; Edward Wong, “U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says,” The New York Times, May 28, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/politics/china-student-visas-revoke.html; The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restricts Foreign Student Visas at Harvard University,” June 4, 2025, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-restricts-foreign-student-visas-at-harvard-university/; The White House, “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals To Protect the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” June 4, 2025, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/restricting-the-entry-of-foreign-nationals-to-protect-the-united-states-from-foreign-terrorists-and-other-national-security-and-public-safety-threats/; Marina Dunbar, “‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown,” The Guardian, June 15, 2025, available at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/jun/15/academics-science-trump-university-crackdown.
  6. Silva Mathema, “Immigrant Doctors Can Help Lower Physician Shortages in Rural American” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2019), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/immigrant-doctors-can-help-lower-physician-shortages-rural-america/; Roni Caryn Rabin, “Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals,” The New York Times, June 19, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/health/medical-residents-travel-ban.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; Roni Caryn Rabin, “Medical Groups Warn Against Visa Fees for Foreign Doctors,” The New York Times, September 26, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/health/trump-h1b-visa-fee-doctors.html; NAFSA: Association of International Educators, “International Students Contribute Record-breaking Level of Spending and 378,000 Jobs to the U.S. Economy,” Press release, November 18, 2024, available at https://www.nafsa.org/about/about-nafsa/international-students-contribute-record-breaking-level-spending-and-378000-jobs; Ruth Sherlock, “Academics in the U.S. seek jobs elsewhere,” NPR, April 4, 2025, available at https://www.npr.org/2025/04/04/nx-s1-5347480/academics-in-the-u-s-seek-jobs-elsewhere; Dunbar, “‘No way to invest in a career here’: US academics flee overseas to avoid Trump crackdown.”
  7. Neera Tanden, Ryan Mulholland, and Adam Conner, “Attacks on the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Are an Attack on a Wellspring of American Prosperity,” Center for American Progress, July 17, 2025, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/attacks-on-the-u-s-innovation-ecosystem-are-an-attack-on-a-wellspring-of-american-prosperity.
  8. The White House, “Economic Growth Shatters Expectations as President Trump Fuels America’s Golden Age,” July 30, 2025, available at “https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/economic-growth-shatters-expectations-as-president-trump-fuels-americas-golden-age/; Tanden, Mulholland, and Conner, “Attacks on the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Are an Attack on a Wellspring of American Prosperity.”
  9. Tanden, Mulholland, and Conner, “Attacks on the U.S. Innovation Ecosystem Are an Attack on a Wellspring of American Prosperity”; Gary Grumbach and Marlene Lenthang, “Judge orders Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard,” NBC News, September 3, 2025, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-orders-trump-administration-unfreeze-nearly-22-billion-federal-g-rcna228926; Katherine Knott, “5 Charts Breaking Down Trump’s Funding Freezes Against Universities,” Inside Higher Ed, August 28, 2025, available at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/2025/08/28/trumps-funding-freezes-against-universities-5-charts.
  10. Greg Iacurci, “Trump immigration policy may be shrinking labor force, economists say,” CNBC, August 21, 2025, available at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/21/trump-immigration-policy-labor-force.html; The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Suspends the Entry of Certain Alien Nonimmigrant Workers,” September 19, 2025, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/09/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-suspends-the-entry-of-certain-alien-nonimmigrant-workers/.
  11. American Immigration Council, “Mass Deportation: Analyzing the Trump Administration’s Attacks on Immigrants, Democracy, and America” (Washington: 2025), available at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/report/mass-deportation-trump-democracy/; Aurelia Glass, “Despite Musk’s Departure, Trump’s War Against Unions and Workers Will Continue,” Center for American Progress, June 23, 2025, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/despite-musks-departure-trumps-war-against-unions-and-workers-will-continue/; Aurelia Glass, “The Trump Administration Is Quietly Gutting Minimum Wage Protections for Millions of Workers,” Center for American Progress, August 27, 2025, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-trump-administration-is-quietly-gutting-minimum-wage-protections-for-millions-of-workers/.
  12. Neera Tanden and Debu Gandhi, “A New Immigration System To Safeguard America’s Security, Expand Economic Growth, and Make Us Stronger” (Washington: Center for American Progress, 2025), available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/a-new-immigration-system-to-safeguard-americas-security-expand-economic-growth-and-make-us-stronger/.
  13. Muzaffar Chishti and Stephen Yale-Loehr, “The Immigration Act of 1990: Unfinished Business a Quarter-Century Later” (Washington: Migration Policy Institute, 2016), available at https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/immigration-act-1990-still-unfinished-business-quarter-century-later.
  14. Solcyré Burga, “The State Department Has Revoked More Than 6,000 Student Visas,” Time, August 19, 2025, available at https://time.com/7310743/student-visas-revoked-us-trump-immigration/.
  15. Cecilia Esterline, “ICE rewrites international student data without explanation,” Niskanen Center, August 12, 2025, available at https://www.niskanencenter.org/ice-rewrites-international-student-data-without-explanation/; Johanna Alonso, “What Is SEVIS, and How Is the Government Using It to Go After International Students,” Inside Higher Ed, April 22, 2025, available at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/global/international-students-us/2025/04/22/laws-behind-trumps-student-visa-terminations; Matt Simons, “International students score nationwide win against Trump and ICE,” Courthouse News Service, May 22, 2025, available at https://www.courthousenews.com/international-students-score-nationwide-win-against-trump-and-ice/.
  16. Kate Brumback, “International students stripped of legal status in the U.S. are piling up wins in court,” PBS, April 23, 2025, available at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/international-students-stripped-of-legal-status-in-the-u-s-are-piling-up-wins-in-court; Arizona Student DOE #2 v. Trump, order, U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, 4:25-cv-00175 (April 15, 2025), available at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.azd.1435568/gov.uscourts.azd.1435568.7.0.pdf; Jane Doe 1 v. Pam Bondi, civil action, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, 1:25-cv-01998-VMC (April 18, 2025), available at https://iptp-production.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/2025.04.18_Order_Granting_TRO_-_Jane_Doe_1_v._Bondi.pdf; Krish Lai Isserdasani v. Kristi Noem, opinion and order, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, 25-cv-283-wmc (May 7, 2025), available at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wiwd.54361/gov.uscourts.wiwd.54361.27.0.pdf.
  17. Adrian Florido, “Government says — for now — it will restore international students’ status,” NPR, April 25, 2025, available at https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5377610/government-says-for-now-it-will-restore-international-students-status; Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, “International Student Visa Revocations and SEVIS Record Terminations: Guidance for Colleges & Universities,” July 24, 2025, available at https://www.presidentsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Updated-FAQ-Understanding-Recent-International-Student-Visa-Revocations-and-Apprehensions_-Guidance-for-Colleges-Universities.pdf.
  18. American Association of University Professors v. Marco Rubio, civil action, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 1:25-cv-10685-WGY (September 30, 2025), available at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.282460/gov.uscourts.mad.282460.261.0.pdf.
  19. Kaste, “Masked officers in Tufts student arrest raise fears among immigrants and bystanders”; Tufts University, “Rumeysa Öztürk: Our Student, Teacher, Colleague, and Friend,” March 28, 2025, available at https://as.tufts.edu/epcshd/news-events/news/rumeysa-ozturk-our-student-teacher-colleague-and-friend; Adrian Florido, “Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk freed from immigration detention,” NPR, May 9, 2025, available at https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393055/tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-ordered-freed-from-immigration-detention.
  20. Joanna Slater and John Hudson, “U.S. used a transnational crime unit to secretly target campus protesters,” The Washington Post, October 2, 2025, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/02/trump-administration-university-pro-palestine-activists/. The 25-year DHS veteran who The Washington Post spoke with worked for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a federal law enforcement agency within ICE. See U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Who We Are,” available at https://www.ice.gov/about-ice/hsi (last accessed November 2025).
  21. American Association of University Professors v. Marco Rubio, 1:25-cv-10685-WGY; Cole and Lybrand, “‘Full-throated assault on the First Amendment’: Judge rips into Trump over attempts to deport pro-Palestinian academics.”
  22. Brittany Gibson and Stef W. Kight, “Scoop: Stephen Miller, Noem Tell ICE to Supercharge Immigrant Arrests,” Axios, May 28, 2025, available at https://www.axios.com/2025/05/28/immigration-ice-deportations-stephen-miller; Campbell Robertson, “An Iranian Student in U.S. Detention Makes a Hard Choice: Stay or Go Home,” The New York Times, May 15, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/us/doroudi-student-visa-detention.html; Mekahlo Medina, “Undocumented Harvard grad from Los Angeles self-deports to Mexico,” NBC News, May 21, 2025, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/undocumented-harvard-grad-self-deports-rcna208330.
  23. Jean Lee, “Harvard researcher is released from federal custody following accusations of smuggling frog embryos,” NBC News, June 12, 2025, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/harvard-researcher-released-ice-arrest-immigration-kseniia-petrova-rcna212678; Ellen Barry, “She Worked in a Harvard Lab to Reverse Aging, Until ICE Jailed Her,” The New York Times, April 11, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/science/russian-scientist-ice-detained-harvard.html; Ellen Barry, “Grand Jury Indicts Russian Scientist on Smuggling Charges,” The New York Times, June 25, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/science/russian-scientist-harvard-smuggling-deportation-petrova.html.
  24. Heidi Ledford and Alexandra Witze, “‘Anxiety is palpable’: detention of researchers at US border spurs travel worries,” Nature, March 24, 2025, available at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00859-w.
  25. The White House, “Restricting The Entry of Foreign Nationals To Protect The United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats”; Allison McCann and Pablo Robles, “See the Countries Under Trump’s Travel Ban, Including Those That May be Added,” The New York Times, June 16, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/04/us/politics/trump-travel-ban-map.html.
  26. U.S. Department of State, “Announcement of Expanded Screening and Vetting for Visa Applicants,” Press release, June 18, 2025, available at https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/06/announcement-of-expanded-screening-and-vetting-for-visa-applicants; Matthew Lee and Ablee Zhang, “ US resumes visas for foreign students but demands access to social media accounts,” Associated Press, June 18, 2025, available at https://apnews.com/article/student-visas-trump-social-media-6632a2c585245edcd6a63594345dd8c7; Miranda Nazarro, “Trump administration leans on social media in immigration fight,” The Hill, June 24, 2025, available at https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5364928-trump-administration-social-media-vet/; Karin Fischer, “Could New Social-Media Screening Create a Student-Visa Bottleneck?”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 23, 2025, available at https://www.chronicle.com/article/could-new-social-media-screening-create-a-student-visa-bottleneck.
  27. Rabin, “Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals”; Mathema, “Immigrant Doctors Can Help Lower Physician Shortages in Rural America”; Mia Ives-Rublee and Kim Musheno, “The Truth About the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s Cuts to Medicaid and Medicare,” Center for American Progress, July 3, 2025, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-truth-about-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-acts-cuts-to-medicaid-and-medicare/.
  28. Jill H. Wilson, “Immigration: Nonimmigrant (Temporary) Admissions to the United States” (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2019), available at https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R45040/R45040.7.pdf. See Appendix for a more detailed description of select immigration processes.
  29. Association of American Universities and Business Roundtable, “International Students and American Competitiveness,” available at https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Immigration/International%20Students%20%26%20American%20Competitiveness%20.%20AAU%20BRT%20Report%20.%20October%202022.pdf (last accessed November 2025).
  30. U.S. Department of State, “Visa Denials,” available at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-information-resources/visa-denials.html (last accessed November 2025). See the dropdown “INA Section 214(b) – Visa Qualifications and Immigrant Intent” for information on the need for people seeking most nonimmigrant visas, including a student visa, to demonstrate that they intend to return to their home country in order to secure the visa.
  31. American Immigration Council, “The H-1B Visa Program and Its Impact on the U.S. Economy,” available at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/h1b-visa-program-fact-sheet/ (last accessed November 2025).
  32. National Immigration Forum, “Explainer: PERM Labor Certification Process,” April 25, 2023, available at https://forumtogether.org/article/explainer-perm-labor-certification-process/.
  33. Chishti and Yale-Loehr, “The Immigration Act of 1990: Unfinished Business a Quarter-Century Later”; David J. Bier, “1.8 Million in Employment-Based Green Card Backlog,” Cato Institute, August 29, 2023, available at https://www.cato.org/blog/18-million-employment-based-green-card-backlog.
  34. For example, the administration has proposed limiting the time international students have to complete their course of study to four years, even though, overall, only 44 percent of postsecondary students complete their degree in that duration according to data from the U.S. Department of Education under the first Trump administration. This change could force some students to have to leave the country to renew their visas before they finish their degree—an expensive, uncertain process that needlessly complicates current students’ studies and could decrease international students’ interest in studying in the United States. See Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, “The Trump Administration Moves to Reinstate Restrictions on Legal Immigration Proposed in First Term,” American Immigration Council, August 18, 2025, available at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/trump-reinstates-immigration-policies/; National Center for Education Statistics, “Fast Facts: Time to degree,” available at https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=569 (last accessed November 2025).
  35. President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Department of Homeland Security, order, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 1:25-cv-11472-ADB (May 23, 2025), available at https://www.harvard.edu/research-funding/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2025/05/2025.05.23_TRO_Harvard_Final.pdf; President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Department of Homeland Security, order, U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 1:25-cv-11472-ADB (June 6, 2025), available at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.285083/gov.uscourts.mad.285083.59.0_3.pdf; Kayla Epstein, “Trump administration ends Harvard’s ability to enroll international students,” BBC News, May 22, 2025, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c05768jmm11o; Collin Binkley and Michael Casey, “Trump administration bars Harvard from enrolling foreign students,” Associated Press, May 22, 2025, available at https://apnews.com/article/harvard-trump-foreign-student-457d07268fba9c1f6f7f32fe0424bc3b; The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Restricts Foreign Student Visas at Harvard University.”
  36. President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Department of Homeland Security, 1:25-cv-11472-ADB (May 23, 2025); President and Fellows of Harvard College v. Department of Homeland Security, 1:25-cv-11472-ADB (June 6, 2025).
  37. Bianca Quilantan, “DHS subpoenas Harvard over international student information,” Politico, July 9, 2025, available at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/dhs-subpoenas-harvard-over-international-student-information-00443697.
  38. Ben Olinsky, Viviann Anguiano, and Devon Ombres, “Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Colleges Will Put University Presidents in Legal Jeopardy,” Center for American Progress, October 10, 2025, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trumps-compact-with-colleges-will-put-university-presidents-in-legal-jeopardy/; Michael C. Bender, “Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference,” The New York Times, October 3, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/us/politics/trump-college-funding.html; Washington Examiner, “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” available at https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Compact-for-Academic-Excellence-in-Higher-Education-10.1.pdf (last accessed November 2025).
  39. Alan Blinder, “All but 2 Universities Decline a Trump Offer of Preferential Funding,” The New York Times, October 20, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/20/us/politics/universities-funding-compact.html.
  40. Andrew Kreighbaum, “Trump USCIS Nominee Joseph Edlow Gets Full Senate Confirmation,” Bloomberg Law, July 15, 2025, available at https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/trump-uscis-nominee-joseph-edlow-gets-full-senate-confirmation; Stuart Anderson, “Snubbing Trump, Immigration Nominee Would End Student Practical Training,” Forbes, May 23, 2025, available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/05/22/snubbing-trump-immigration-nominee-will-end-student-practical-training/.
  41. David J. Bier, “The Facts about Optional Practical Training (OPT) for Foreign Students,” Cato Institute, May 20, 2020, available at https://www.cato.org/blog/facts-about-optional-practical-training-opt-foreign-students; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 Students,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/optional-practical-training-opt-for-f-1-students (last accessed November 2025).
  42. Arturo Castellanos Canales, “Explainer: Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Academic Training (AT),” National Immigration Forum, April 30, 2024, available at https://forumtogether.org/article/explainer-optional-practical-training-opt-and-academic-training-at/; Jill H. Wilson, “Optional Practical Training (OPT) for Foreign Students in the United States” (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2025), available at https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12631; Dan Gooding, “The Foreign Worker ‘Loophole’ That Gives Corporations a Generous Tax Break,” Newsweek, August 23, 2025, available at https://www.newsweek.com/student-visas-stem-opt-jobs-immigration-tax-loophole-2117914.
  43. Wilson, “Immigration: Nonimmigrant (Temporary) Admissions to the United States.”
  44. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Age Calculation under Child Status Protection Act,” February 14, 2023, available at https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/policy-manual-updates/20230214-CSPA.pdf; Ariel Brown, “USCIS Child Status Protection Act Policy Update,” Immigrant Legal Resource Center, September 16, 2025, available at https://www.ilrc.org/resources/uscis-child-status-protection-act-policy-update.
  45. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “USCIS Updates Policy on CSPA Age Calculation,” Press release, August 8, 2025, available at https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-updates-policy-on-cspa-age-calculation; Rayna Wachs, “USCIS Tightens CSPA Age Calculation for Green Card Applicants,” Boundless Immigration, August 11, 2025, available at https://www.boundless.com/blog/uscis-tightens-cspa-age-calculation-for-green-card-applicants.
  46. Wilson, “Immigration: Nonimmigrant (Temporary) Admissions to the United States”; Daniel Costa, “H-1B visa needs reform to make it fairer to migrant and American workers,” Press release, Economic Policy Institute, April 5, 2017, available at https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visa-needs-reform-to-make-it-fairer-to-migrant-and-american-workers/.
  47. Costa, “H-1B visa needs reform to make it fairer to migrant and American workers”; Department for Professional Employees, “The Case for Reform of the H-1B and L-1 Visa Programs,” available at https://www.dpeaflcio.org/factsheets/guest-worker-visas-the-h-1b-and-l-1 (last accessed November 2025); William Brangham, “How H-1B visa changes could impact American businesses and workers,” PBS NewsHour, September 23, 2025, available at https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-h-1b-visa-changes-could-impact-american-businesses-and-workers; Ronil Hira, “Unlocking America’s Potential: How Immigration Fuels Economic Growth and Our Competitive Advantage,” U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget, September 13, 2023, available at https://www.budget.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/ronil_testimony_913.pdf.
  48. For example, a decade ago, five Democratic and five Republican senators wrote to the departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor highlighting abuses within the H-1B program and calling for an investigation into these abuses. See Office of Sen. Dick Durbin, “Durbin & Sessions Lead Bipartisan Group of Senators in Calling for Investigation Into Abuses Within H-1B Visa Program,” Press release, April 9, 2015, available at https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-and-sessions-lead-bipartisan-group-of-senators-in-calling-for-investigation-into-abuses-within-h-1b-visa-program; H–1B and L–1 Visa Reform Act of 2025, S. 2928, 119th Cong., 1st sess. (September 29, 2025), available at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/2928/text.
  49. Tyler Pager and Hamed Aleaziz, “Trump Says the U.S. Will Institute $100,000 Fee for Skilled Worker Visas,” The New York Times, September 19, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/us/politics/trump-h-1b-visas-fee.html; The White House, “Executive Order 14351 of September 19, 2025: The Gold Card,” Federal Register 90 (183) (2025): 46031–46033, available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/09/24/2025-18602/the-gold-card.
  50. The White House, “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” September 19, 2025, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/.
  51. Costa, “H-1B visa needs reform to make it fairer to migrant and American workers.”
  52. Barbara Ortutay and Seung Min Kim, “Trump signs proclamation adding $100K annual fee for H-1B visa applications,” Associated Press, September 19, 2025, available at https://apnews.com/article/h1b-visa-trump-immigration-8d39699d0b2de3d90936f8076357254e; Megan Ziegler, “H-1B $100k visa updates from Trump administration,” LiveNOW from Fox, October 21, 2025, available at https://www.livenowfox.com/news/h1b-visa-100k-fee-news-updates-latest-trump-uscis; Leslie Dellon, “$100,000 H-1B Fee Causes Chaos, Likely Unaffordable for Many Companies,” American Immigration Council, September 26, 2025, available at https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/100000-h1b-fee-unaffordable-companies/; Anniek Bao, “Trump’s H-1B visa fee sparks chaos and confusion among Chinese talents in the U.S.,” CNBC, September 22, 2025, available at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/22/trumps-h-1b-visa-fee-sparks-chaos-and-confusion-among-chinese-talents-in-the-us.html.
  53. Dellon, “$100,000 H-1B Fee Causes Chaos, Likely Unaffordable for Many Companies.”
  54. Nick Niedzwiadek, Alice Miranda Ollstein, and Simon J. Levien, “Trump’s new $100K visa fee could pummel red state hospitals,” Politico, October 2, 2025, available at https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/02/trump-h1b-visa-fee-hospitals-doctors-red-states-00592194.
  55. Madeleine Ngo, “Trump’s H-1B Visa Fee Could Strain Universities and Schools,” The New York Times, October 8, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/us/politics/trump-h-1b-visa-fee-universities.html.
  56. The White House, “Executive Order 14351 of September 19, 2025: The Gold Card.”
  57. Bier, “1.8 Million in Employment-Based Green Card Backlog”; David J. Bier, “8.3 Million Relatives of U.S. Citizens & Legal Residents Awaited Green Cards in 2022,” Cato Institute, May 17, 2023, available at https://www.cato.org/blog/83-million-relatives-us-citizens-legal-residents-await-green-cards.
  58. Connor O’Brien and Adam Ozimek, “Immigrant inventors are crucial for American national and economic security,” Economic Innovation Group, May 21, 2024, available at https://eig.org/immigrants-patents/.
  59. Celina Tebor, “Already facing Trump administration cuts, US colleges risk losses from another revenue source: foreign students,” CNN, April 18, 2025, available at https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/us/international-students-universities-funding-trump.
  60. Julie Heng and Yutong Deng, “Innovation Lightbulb: Not Just Attracting But Retaining International STEM Students,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 11, 2025, available at https://www.csis.org/analysis/innovation-lightbulb-not-just-attracting-retaining-international-stem-students; Government of Canada, “Hire through the Global Skills Strategy,” available at https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/work-canada/hire-temporary-foreign/global-skills-strategy.html (last accessed November 2025).
  61. Path To Canada, “A Path for Foreign-Born Graduates: From the US to Canada With Path To Canada,” available at https://pathtocanada.com/a-path-for-foreign-born-graduates-from-the-us-to-canada-with-path-to-canada/ (last accessed November 2025).
  62. Andrew Ede, “Mallorca looking to attract US ‘brain drain’ researchers,” Majorca Daily Bulletin, April 6, 2025, available at https://www.majorcadailybulletin.com/news/local/2025/04/06/132363/mallorca-university-looking-attract-brain-drain-researchers.html.
  63. Vivian Wang, “China Really Wants to Attract Talented Scientists. Trump Just Helped,” The New York Times, June 4, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/world/asia/trump-science-visa-china.html.
  64. Yu Xie and others, “Reverse Brain Drain? Exploring Trends among Chinese Scientists in the U.S.” (Stanford, CA: Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions, 2024), available at https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2024-07/reverse_brain_drain_7.15.24_0.pdf.
  65. Kirk Carapezza, “US colleges need international students. Trump’s policies may drive them away,” GBH, May 13, 2025, available at https://www.wgbh.org/news/education-news/2025-05-13/us-colleges-need-international-students-trumps-policies-may-drive-them-away.
  66. NAFSA: Association of International Educators, “Fall 2025 International Student Enrollment Outlook and Economic Impact,” available at https://www.nafsa.org/sites/default/files/media/document/Fall%202025%20International%20Student%20Enrollment%20Outlook%20and%20Economic%20Impact.pdf (last accessed November 2025).
  67. Ibid.
  68. Cecilia Esterline, “Legal immigration in numbers: October 2025 status update,” Niskanen Center, September 30, 2025, available at https://www.niskanencenter.org/immigrationdata/#sdoh.
  69. Mark Bennett, “How Trump’s re-election is shaping international study trends,” Keystone Education Group, November 8, 2024, available at https://www.keg.com/news/trumps-re-election-and-its-impact-on-international-education; Institute for Progress and NAFSA: Association of International Educators, “Surveys on International Talent Pipelines” (Washington: 2025), available at https://ifp.org/wp-content/uploads/2025-Surveys-on-International-Talent-Pipelines.pdf; NAFSA: Association of International Educators, “International Students Contribute Record-Breaking Level of Spending and 378,000 Jobs to the U.S. Economy”; NAFSA: Association of International Educators, “The United States of America: Benefits from International Students,” available at https://www.nafsa.org/sites/default/files/media/document/EconValue2024.pdf (last accessed November 2025).
  70. Tebor, “Already facing Trump administration cuts, US colleges risk losses from another revenue source: foreign students”; Kayla Susalla, ”International Students Benefit the United States,” Cato Institute, April 11, 2025, available at https://www.cato.org/blog/international-students-benefit-united-states.
  71. Dick Startz, “International college students matter for the economy,” The Brookings Institution, May 30, 2025, available at https://www.brookings.edu/articles/international-college-students-matter-for-the-economy/; Federal Student Aid, “International Students Wishing To Attend College in the United States,” available at https://studentaid.gov/resources/international-students-college-us (last accessed November 2025); Lakshima Sareen, “Explained: How Trump’s 15% cap on foreign students risks eroding Harvard’s academic edge,” The Times of India, May 29, 2025, available at https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/explained-how-trumps-15-cap-on-foreign-students-risks-eroding-harvards-academic-edge/articleshow/121492612.cms; Susalla, “International Students Benefit the United States.”
  72. Zachary Schermele, “International college students bring billions to the US. Here’s why that may change,” USA Today, May 15, 2025, available at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2025/05/15/international-college-students-billions-economy-immigration/83417546007/; Susalla, “International Students Benefit the United States”; Robin Matross Helms and Sarah Spreitzer, “International Student Inclusion and Success: Public Attitudes, Policy Imperatives, and Practical Strategies” (Washington: American Council on Education, 2021), available at https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/International-Student-Inclusion-Success.pdf.
  73. Janice Kim, “The Benefits of International Students to the Diversity Paradigm” (Durham, NC: Association of International Education Administrators, 2022), available at https://www.aieaworld.org/uploads/1/4/5/2/145269424/04.2022_kim_occasional_paper.pdf.
  74. Association of American Universities and Business Roundtable, “International Students and American Competitiveness.”
  75. Calculations by the author based on data from National Center for Education Statistics, “Fast Facts: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, by gender,” available at https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=899 (last accessed November 2025). To calculate the share of international students in STEM Ph.D.s, the total number of doctoral degrees conferred to nonresidents was divided by the total number of doctoral degrees conferred. The same method was used to determine the share of degrees conferred at the master’s level.
  76. Heng and Deng, “Innovation Lightbulb: Not Just Attracting But Retaining International STEM Students.”
  77. Gerrit De Vynck and Danielle Abril, “Tech companies are telling immigrant employees on visas not to leave the U.S.,” The Washington Post, March 31, 2025, available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/31/immigration-h1b-fear-siliconvalley/.
  78. The White House, “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers”; Freddie Clayton and Matteo Moschella, “Trump’s new $100,000 visa fee sets off panic and confusion,” NBC News, September 22, 2025, available at https://www.nbcnews.com/world/asia/trump-h1b-visa-fee-travel-tech-workers-india-china-immigration-rcna232695.
  79. Zachary Arnold and others, “Immigration Policy and the U.S. AI Sector” (Washington: Center for Security and Emerging Technology, 2019), available at https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET_Immigration_Policy_and_AI.pdf.
  80. Trelysa Long, “China Is Catching Up in R&D—and May Have Already Pulled Ahead,” Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, April 9, 2025, available at https://itif.org/publications/2025/04/09/china-catching-up-rd-may-have-already-pulled-ahead/; Arnold and others, “Immigration Policy and the U.S. AI Sector”; Sam Shead, “U.K. Government To Fund AI University Courses With £115m,” Forbes, February 20, 2019, available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2019/02/20/uk-government-to-fund-ai-university-courses-with-115m/.
  81. Adib Bin Rashid and MD Ashfakul Karim Kausik, “AI revolutionizing industries worldwide: A comprehensive overview of its diverse applications,” Hybrid Advances 7 (100277) (2024): 1–34, available at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2773207X24001386.
  82. The White House, “AI Talent Report” (Washington: 2025), available at https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cea/written-materials/2025/01/14/ai-talent-report/.
  83. The White House, “Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023: Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence,” Federal Register, 88 (210) (2023): 75191–75226, available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/01/2023-24283/safe-secure-and-trustworthy-development-and-use-of-artificial-intelligence.
  84. Ibid.
  85. “Executive Order 14110 of October 30, 2023: Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence”; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Completing an Unprecedented 10 Million Immigration Cases in Fiscal Year 2023, USCIS Reduced Its Backlog for the First Time in Over a Decade,” Press release, February 9, 2024, available at https://www.uscis.gov/EOY2023.
  86. The White House, “Executive Order 14179 of January 23, 2025: Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence,” Federal Register 90 (20) (2025): 8741–8742, available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/31/2025-02172/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence; Stuart Anderson, “Trump AI Plan Omits Role Of Immigration And Foreign-Born Talent,” Forbes, July 24, 2025, available at https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2025/07/24/trump-ai-plan-omits-role-of-immigration-and-foreign-born-talent/.
  87. Rayna Wachs, “USCIS Q2 Data: Backlogs Hit Record High as EB-1A Growth Slows, Processing Times Surge,” Boundless Immigration, July 24, 2025, available at https://www.boundless.com/blog/uscis-q2-fy2025-data.
  88. Remco Zwetsloot, Roxanne Heston, and Zachary Arnold, “Strengthening the U.S. AI Workforce” (Washington: Center for Security and Emerging Technology, 2019), available at https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/strengthening-the-u-s-ai-workforce/.
  89. Natasha Singer, “Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle,” The New York Times, August 14, 2025, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/coding-ai-jobs-students.html.
  90. Verizon, “Verizon Skill Forward,” available at https://www.verizon.com/about/responsibility/human-prosperity/reskilling-program (last accessed November 2025); Emma Burleigh, “How PwC is tapping into a small group of volunteer ‘super users’ to boost employee engagement with AI,” Fortune, May 22, 2024, available at https://fortune.com/2024/05/22/pwc-ai-super-users-help-upskill-workers-in-new-tech/; Ariel Gilreath, “Employers say AI skills aren’t just for tech majors anymore. How colleges are responding,” Los Angeles Times, July 1, 2025, available at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-07-01/ai-college-courses-for-job-seekers.
  91. Neufeld and Milliken, “Most of America’s Top AI Companies Were Founded by Immigrants”; The White House, “AI Talent Report.”
  92. Wilson, “Immigration: Nonimmigrant (Temporary) Admissions to the United States”; William A. Kandel, “Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview” (Washington: Congressional Research Service, 2024), available at https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R42866/R42866.18.pdf.
  93. Megan Shahi and Adam Connor, “Priorities for a National AI Strategy,” Center for American Progress, August 10, 2023, available at https://www.americanprogress.org/article/priorities-for-a-national-ai-strategy/.
  94. Tanden and Gandhi, “A New Immigration System To Safeguard America’s Security, Expand Economic Growth, and Make Us Stronger.”
  95. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Nonimmigrant Pathways for STEM Employment in the United States,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/stem-employment-pathways/nonimmigrant-pathways-for-stem-employment-in-the-united-states (last accessed November 2025).
  96. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “H-1B Specialty Occupations,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/h-1b-specialty-occupations (last accessed November 2025).
  97. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “USCIS Reaches Fiscal Year 2026 H-1B Cap,” Press release, July 18, 2025, available at https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-reaches-fiscal-year-2026-h-1b-cap.
  98. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Fiscal Year 2024: H-1B Petitions” (Washington: 2025), available at https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/legal-docs/ola_signed_fy2024_h1b_petitions.pdf; Carolyn Im, Alexandra Cahn, and Sahana Mukherjee, “What we know about the U.S. H-1B visa program,” Pew Research Center, March 4, 2025, available at https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/04/what-we-know-about-the-us-h-1b-visa-program/.
  99. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “H-1B Electronic Registration Process,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary-workers/h-1b-specialty-occupations/h-1b-electronic-registration-process (last accessed November 2025).
  100. Ron Hira and Daniel Costa, “The H-1B visa program remains the ‘outsourcing visa’,” Economic Policy Institute, March 31, 2021, available at https://www.epi.org/blog/the-h-1b-visa-program-remains-the-outsourcing-visa-more-than-half-of-the-top-30-h-1b-employers-were-outsourcing-firms/.
  101. Department for Professional Employees, “The Case for Reform of the H-1B and L-1 Visa Programs.”
  102. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Students and Employment,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/students-and-employment (last accessed November 2025).
  103. U.S. Department of State, “Table XV(B) Nonimmigrant Visas Issued by Classification (Including Border Crossing Cards) Fiscal Years 2020-2024,” available at https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/AnnualReports/FY2024AnnualReport/Table%20XVB.pdf (last accessed November 2025); Institute of International Education, “United States Hosts More Than 1.1 Million International Students at Higher Education Institutions, Reaching All-Time High,” Press release, November 18, 2024, available at https://www.iie.org/news/us-hosts-more-than-1-1-million-intl-students-at-higher-education-institutions-all-time-high/.
  104. Bier, “The Facts about Optional Practical Training (OPT) for Foreign Students”; U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 Students.”
  105. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 Students.”
  106. Canales, “Explainer: Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Academic Training (AT).”
  107. U.S. Department of State, “J-1 Visa Basics,” available at https://j1visa.state.gov/basics/ (last accessed November 2025).
  108. Ibid.
  109. U.S. Department of State, “Hosting STEM Exchange Visitors: The Process,” available at https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/early-career-stem-research-initiative/ (last accessed November 2025); U.S. Department of State, “STEM Initiatives,” available at https://j1visa.state.gov/programs/stem-initiatives/ (last accessed November 2025).
  110. U.S. Department of State, “Facts and Figures 2015-2024,” available at https://j1visa.state.gov/facts-and-figures-2015-2024/ (last accessed November 2025).
  111. U.S. Department of State, “Exchange Visitor Visa,” available at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/study/exchange.html (last accessed November 2025).
  112. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Conrad 30 Waiver Program,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/students-and-exchange-visitors/conrad-30-waiver-program (last accessed November 2025).
  113. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, “Permanent Workers,” available at https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/permanent-workers (last accessed November 2025).
  114. Ibid.
  115. Wilson, “Immigration: Nonimmigrant (Temporary) Admissions to the United States”; Kandel, “Permanent Legal Immigration to the United States: Policy Overview.”
  116. Bier, “1.8 Million in Employment-Based Green Card Backlog.”

The positions of American Progress, and our policy experts, are independent, and the findings and conclusions presented are those of American Progress alone. American Progress would like to acknowledge the many generous supporters who make our work possible.

Authors

Ben Greenho

Policy Analyst

Silva Mathema

Director, Immigration Policy

Rosa Barrientos-Ferrer

Senior Policy Analyst

Debu Gandhi

Senior Director, Immigration Policy

Team

A woman, originally from Bangladesh, holds her 7-month-old daughter as she recites the Pledge of Allegiance.

Immigration Policy

We aim to create a fair, humane, orderly, and workable immigration system to strengthen the United States.

This field is hidden when viewing the form

Default Opt Ins

This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form

Variable Opt Ins

This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form
This field is hidden when viewing the form

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.