Texas Republican Steve Toth has called for a sweeping rewrite of the H-1B visa system, arguing that the programme “perverts the market” and leaves American graduates struggling under heavy debt while competing for lower-paid jobs.
Toth is a Texas State Representative and is running for the US Congress. He made the comments while speaking with MAGA lawyer Matt Gaetz, who asked him what he would do about immigration enforcement and border control if he were elected.
Toth said: “We’ve got to do a complete rewrite of H-1B visas…kids are graduating from school with record amounts of debt and they go into the job pool and compete with people that have H1B visas and are willing to work for half… It PERVERTS the market and that’s gotta stop.”
Toth argued that students are leaving universities with high amounts of debt, only to find themselves competing against foreign workers, likely Indian and Chinese, employed under the H-1B visa programme. He linked rising education costs to large tuition revenue bonds granted to universities, saying they have failed to make higher education more affordable for Americans.
“We’ve got to do a complete rewrite of H-1B visas…kids are graduating from school with record amounts of debt and they go into the job pool and compete with people that have H1B visas and are willing to work for half… It PERVERTS the market and that’s gotta stop.”Texas State… pic.twitter.com/fcDj06R6pj
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Toth explained how schools and universities make education expensive for Americans: “Look, man, we give schools and universities these huge amounts of tuition revenue bonds. They don't that doesn't make education less expensive, for some reason it seems to make education more expensive. So kids are graduating from school with record amounts of debt. And then what happens is they go into the job pool, and they're competing with people who have H1B visas who are willing to work for half of what they're willing to work for. It's it perverts the market. And um so that's got to stop.”
Beyond visa reform, Toth said immigration enforcement should be stricter. In response to Gaetz’s question about border policy, he said existing executive actions under US President Donald Trump should be written permanently into law.
“So, first off, we've got to codify everything that Trump has done through executive orders. It's got to be codified into law, number one. Number two, we've got to take we've got to do a complete rewrite of what's going on with H1B visas.”
He also claimed that large numbers of immigrants are entering the US each year and that many rely on welfare support.
He added, “Um and look, we bring a million people into the United States every year. A million, 333,000 of them go right onto the welfare rolls.”
Toth also proposed stricter entry conditions for foreign nationals, including mandatory background checks and a sponsorship requirement that would make an individual responsible for ensuring the newcomer works and pays taxes.
He added: “So, in in addition to that, we've also got to start getting back to the old adage of, if you want to come here, you're going to have to get a background check and somebody's gonna have to sponsor you. Meaning, they're going to be responsible for making sure that you're working and that you're paying taxes. And if you're not, you're out of here, number one.”
He also made controversial remarks about immigration from Muslim-majority countries.
He said: “Number two, no one from Islamic nations belongs in the United States.Islam is not compatible with the Western ideals of democracy and a free market. They're just they're not.”
The H-1B visa programme allows US employers to hire foreign workers in specialised occupations such as tech and defence.
