'Something badly wrong with H-1B': Former visa officer says he interviewed average college graduates in India

Researcher Simon Hankinson who worked as a visa officer in India opened up about his experience of interviewing for H-1B visa program 25 years ago and said he did not fail to see even at the beginning what was wrong with the program. In an opinion piece for Fox News, Hankinson wrote that something was badly wrong with the program which intended to bring 'specialty' workers to the US. But in reality, even 25 years ago, it was average college graduates that he interviewed for the visa program, he said.

'Unfair to compare Chinese or Indian student with American student'

Hankinson said it's unfair to compare between a Chinese of an Indian student with an American student as a Chinese or Indian student goes to free or inexpensive schools in their countries, gets a BA, MA or even a PhD with little debt. But in America, students are borrowing thousands of dollars to get to the same level. "They can’t take jobs at the same low salaries their H-1B competitors can," Hankinson said.




"Amazon got over 10,000 approvals for H-1B visas in 2025, in the same year as they announced cuts of over 30,000 jobs. Was any effort made to retrain or re-assign Americans? Many other large US companies follow the same pattern: hire abroad, fire at home."

Hankinson also said that US companies do not need a lot of specialty workers. "The truth is, the number of real "specialty" workers that even big American companies really need should fit in a bus, not a stadium. And they should be willing to pay a high premium for them," he wrote.

"If AI firms are really willing to pay up to a hundred million dollars in signing bonuses for top talent, they will be willing to pay high salaries to get a few essential foreign workers. Some in Washington want to increase visas for foreign workers. Some even believe that Americans should have to compete for their jobs with the whole world. I don’t," he wrote.

In his recent H-1B report for the Heritage Foundation, Hankinson cited the example of Indian politician Kandi Srinivas Reddy, who allegedly used several shell companies to submit multiple H-1B petitions for the same workers. In the 2020 lottery, Reddy reportedly submitted more than 3000 entries, Hankinson wrote, pointing out the abuse of the system that went on for a long time.