US Senator Mike Lee has joined the list of Republican politicians and Donald Trump-appointees rebuffing the H-1B visa program, a nonimmigrant classification famously dominated by Indian nationals.

“Is it time to pause H1B visas” the Republican from Utah wrote on X, alluding to a post referencing the now-infamous claims of a “Walmart scam,” which hinted at a scandal targeting the retailer’s H-1B-holding employees. Initial reports, picking up initially unverified claims from the professional platform Blind, also suggested that vice president tied to the Global Tech’s team was fired for the same reason.

Walmart denied claims of a scandal targeting H-1B workers or Indian employees

Although, a company spokesperson for Walmart has since refuted the allegations, saying that an investigation resulted in the termination of a vendor and a small number of US-based associates. “This investigation has nothing to do with H-1B visas,” the clarified.

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Despite Walmart’s rebuttal, Mike Lee’s brief, though loud-enough, statement against H-1B visa holders has once again cast doubt for Indians and other foreign nationals lawfully aspiring to achieve the American Dream via the ‘Specialty Occupations’ nonimmigrant category.

US immigration numbers: Indians dominate H-1B visa program

According to a Pew Research report, US immigration spiked by 1.6 million in 2023, marking the highest boost in over 20 years. It further stated at the time that immigrant comprised over 14% of the American population, with Indians as the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans in the country.

Despite the H-1B program’s initial charm tied to attracting global talent and skilled foreign workers to the US, the visa classification has now been red-flagged more than ever, with Americans envisioning it as a major threat to their jobs. As detailed in a BBC report earlier this year, Indian nationals dominated the program, securing over 72% of all H-1B visas issued for the period October 2022 to September 2023, with Chinese coming in second with 12%.

US officials speak up against H-1B visa

H-1B is not the only visa category under the scanner. With broader immigration debates targeting several student and employment visa types, foreign nationals can’t help by feel anxious of the current state of affairs in the US, especially in the wake of the Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

In July, US Vice President JD Vance also voiced his critical thoughts involving the H-1b visa program, accusing Microsoft of firing American workers and predominantly relying on immigrant employees.

“You see some big tech companies where they’ll lay off 9,000 workers, and then they’ll apply for a bunch of overseas visas. And I sort of wonder; that doesn’t totally make sense to me,” he said at a bipartisan event hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum.

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“That displacement and that math worries me a bit. And what the president has said, he said very clearly: We want the very best and the brightest to make America their home. We want them to build great companies and so forth. But I don’t want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, ‘We can’t find workers here in America.’ That’s a bullshit story.”

On top of that, newly-elected USCIS Director Joseph Edlow also proposed an H-1B visa overhaul in his interview with the New York Times. Having already declared USCIS “must be an immigration enforcement agency, he also went on to signal a return to the once-proposed rule “Weighted Selection Process for Registrants and Petitioners Seeking to File Cap-Subject H-1B Petitions.”

“I really do think that the way H1B needs to be used, and this is one of my favourite phrases, is to, along with a lot of other parts of immigration, supplement, not supplant, the US economy and US businesses and US workers,” he said in July.

US reports have already hinted at the current government potentially getting rid of the H-1B lottery altogether in favour of a wage-based system to grant visas.