'Completely Broken' — JD Vance Says He'd Scrap the Entire H-1B Visa Program

In 60 seconds: Vice President JD Vance said he'd support scrapping the entire H-1B skilled-worker visa program, calling it "completely broken" — days after a second federal judge blocked the administration's $100,000 H-1B fee.

What happened

In an interview aboard Air Force Two with Real America's Voice host Jack Posobiec, Vice President JD Vance went further than any senior official yet on skilled-worker immigration. "My view is, the H-1B program is completely broken, and I'd be very supportive of just eliminating it," he said.

He was blunt about how he believes the program is actually used: "If you're going to bring in an accountant making $45,000 a year to replace an accountant who is an American making $60,000 a year, that's not you using the program to bring in a genius. That's you DESTROYING American jobs."

Vance also revealed the fee's origins: he said the $100,000 H-1B fee came out of discussions between himself, President Trump, and adviser Stephen Miller — after concluding Congress would never reform the system itself.

Latest verified facts

• A second judge blocked the $100,000 fee. A California ruling follows Judge Leo Sorokin's June 8 Boston ruling, which struck the fee down as a tax imposed without Congressional authority.
• $8.5 million already collected. USCIS took 85 payments totaling $8.5 million from employers before the courts intervened — money now in legal limbo.
• Program scale: H-1B visas are capped at 65,000 a year plus 20,000 advanced-degree slots; nearly three-quarters of approvals go to Indian workers.
• A permanent fee is in the works. DHS began rulemaking in August for a permanent H-1B fee of roughly $103,000.

Why it matters

The H-1B program is the single most important pipeline of skilled foreign workers into American tech — and Vance just said he'd delete it entirely. Not reform it. Eliminate it. That's a dramatic escalation even from the $100,000 fee, which employers treated as a steep toll but one they could pay.

It also spotlights the Republican civil war over immigration. Silicon Valley's Trump allies have long defended skilled immigration as essential to competitiveness. Vance just picked the other side — and as an obvious 2028 contender, he doesn't make that choice by accident.

Impact on the USA and the world

For American tech workers, Vance's framing lands as overdue honesty: layoffs followed by H-1B hires are political dynamite. For the industry, elimination would force a total rethink of how firms staff engineering teams after three decades of the current model.

For India, the stakes are enormous — with nearly three-quarters of approvals flowing to Indian nationals, elimination would choke one of the world's most valuable education-to-immigration pathways. And for the global talent race, America's loss is someone else's gain: Canada, the UK, and Australia have spent years poaching exactly the engineers the U.S. is now threatening to turn away.

What happens next

Watch three fronts. First, the courts: the fee is blocked twice, and the administration will likely appeal — a Supreme Court fight over whether a president can impose what judges call a "tax" on visa petitions is on the table. Second, DHS's August rulemaking for a permanent ~$103,000 fee moves forward regardless. Third, Congress: elimination without legislation is a much harder legal mountain to climb, and Vance himself says lawmakers won't act.

The honest read: the $100,000 fee was yesterday's headline. "Eliminate the entire program" is the new anchor — and everything the administration does next on H-1B will be measured against it.

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