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As the Trump administration makes moves to change the H-1B visa program to benefit American-born workers, Skillstorm CEO Justin Vianello backed those efforts in an interview with Fox News Digital while offering his expertise on other issues that need to be addressed with work visas.
Vianello told Fox News Digital that one of the "biggest challenges" with the current H1B system is the "impact" on college hiring, particularly with computer science and computer engineering graduates.
Vianello explained that the unemployment rate for college graduates with those degrees is significantly higher than the average for all college graduates and that there is a "concerning" level of unemployment with college graduates in IT.
"So that basically means they didn't need degrees for the jobs that they're currently in, being significantly under employed," Vianello said. "How does the H-1B visa program impact that? Well, firstly, rough estimates are that there are about 730,000 H1B holders in the US and about 550,000 dependents. Most of them, in excess of 70% of them, are in IT."
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Vianello went on to explain that data shows H-1B visa holders are paid "significantly less" than their counterparts doing equivalent IT roles which gives them a leg up with employers who are looking to pay less.
"I think it gets a little more broadly than that," Vianello said."In addition to competing with H1V visa holders, college graduates, especially in IT, are also competing with OPT visa holders. This is optional practical training, basically an extension of the F1 visa, which is a student visa, which allows you, if you're a STEM graduate, to work in the U.S. for three years following your graduation."
"Now, the OPT visa holders don't pay Social Security or Medicare taxes, so they're automatically 15% cheaper, and they are typically paid 42% less than their U S counterparts. So as a college grad, you're fighting this three-headed monster. You're graduating with student debt, you've got H1B visa holders and OPT Visa holders who have the ability to take your job and cost an employer significantly less, and then you're competing with the third one which is the ability of an employer to simply offshore that work."
Many tech companies have embraced the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, but critics of the program say H-1B holders are often chosen over U.S. citizens for jobs. One of the reasons for this is that foreign workers are tied to their respective employers via the H-1B visa – as a company is required to sponsor the visa -- and therefore quitting the job could ultimately see foreign workers losing their visa and their ability to legally remain in the country.
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"The reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B," Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk posted on X last year as a rift inside the MAGA movement was raging on the issue.
"The intention was good around bringing in people with skills and retaining people in the US that are doing skills and are studying in the universities," Vianello said. "But the outcome to college grads that are competing for those roles has been really bad."
Earlier this year, the Trump administration unveiled a proposal designed to nudge employers toward offering higher salaries or reserving H-1B petitions for jobs that require advanced skills. The rule change, formally published in the Federal Register, came just days after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation introducing a $100,000 fee for H-1B visa applications.
The $100,000 fee — a one-time charge applying only to new H-1B petitions — will take effect in the next annual lottery, the system the U.S. government uses to select applications once the annual visa cap is reached.
"The whole idea is no more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee, so it’s just not [economical]," Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters on Friday as Trump signed the order.
Vianello told Fox News Digital, "Certainly I think that the $100,000 fee on any new applications is gonna go a long way towards changing behavior, but that's focused on H1B."
"We've seen quite a bit of news recently around changes to the OPT visa program as well in terms of limiting the number of visas and limiting the countries that they come from. That's gonna have a significant impact on the pipeline of people coming through as well. And so I believe those measures are gonna start changing the behavior of many of the employers."
The argument from H1B supporters that the United States is bringing in the "best and the brightest" is a sentiment Vianello pushed back on.
"In the last 18 months, according to layoffs.fyi, these large companies have laid off 250,000 tech professionals, but at the same time, the cap for H1B visas was secured before the end of 2024 for the entire 2025, which is 85,000 people," Vianello explained. "So you're laying off 250,000 US tech workers but you're applying for the maximum cap that you can for H-1B visa holders, that doesn't make sense. If there's a shortage of skills, why are you laying off 250,000 people? So you can see the way it's structured. It's being used as a labor arbitrage to bring down these large companies' tech costs."
Vianello, who came here on a visa, told Fox News Digital he is not opposed to worker visa programs in general, but stressed they shouldn't leave American workers behind.
"I fully support using visas to attract top-tier technologists to the U.S.—I came here on a Specialty Occupation Visa myself, which required my employer to invest significantly to bring me over," Vianello said. "What I oppose is the misuse of programs like H-1B and OPT as tools for labor arbitrage, which undercuts entry-level opportunities for U.S. tech graduates and distorts the talent market."
Fox News Digital’s Michael Dorgan and Amanda Macias contributed to this report
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