Amid ongoing aspersions against the H-1B visa program, a new Republican proposal was introduced by Rep Tom Tiffany and Rep Andrew Clyde proposing to scrap the H-1B visa exception for higher education staff. Currently, there is a 65,000-person cap for the H-1B visa and an additional 20,000 persons for those with master’s degree and beyond. The “Colleges for the American People Act of 2025” would repeal this additional exception and have those from other countries seeking to work in higher education go through the normal H-1B visa process.“American students spend years earning degrees, only to watch universities hand good-paying jobs to foreign workers on special visas,” Tiffany said in a statement. “The CAP Act ensures our institutions invest in the people they are meant to serve and ends the backdoor hiring practices that undercut American workers.”The proposal would not be retroactive, so current H-1B visa holders at universities could still apply for their extension without going towards the limit.For fiscal year 2026, US Citizenship and Immigration Services got enough petitions for the H-1B visa caps as of last week.The proposal comes as the DHS is planning to overhaul the H-1B system and replace the lottery with a wage-based selection. The H-1B remained a contentious issue for the Trump administration, as even before his January inauguration, he courted controversy over this visa program. During his last term, DHS issued a rule to base selection in H-1B petitions on the wage offered for a position. But the rule was shelved by the Biden administration.
H1-B process explained
H-1B is mostly used by Silicon Valley companies but also by higher education institutions. The US employer first offers a job to a foreign worker, then files a labor condition application with the labor department, agreeing to pay the prevailing wage. The employer submits basic details of the person they hired during the registration window. USCIS runs a random lottery to select as it receives far more registrations than its cap. If selected in the lottery, the employer files Form I-129 with USCIS.