A new survey shows a sharp divide in the American workforce over the role of H-1B visa holders. Blind, an anonymous professional network, conducted a survey over 4,230 professionals between August 25 and September 3, 2025. According to it, 56% of US citizens think H-1B workers are taking their jobs away. The findings come at a time when debates around foreign workers and layoffs are fueling political and social tensions in the US.
Americans’s deeply divided on H-1B visa
According to the survey, 70% of respondents said H-1B visa holders are crucial for helping American companies grow. However, opinions varied by the immigration status. While 87% of foreign-born professionals supported the view, only 49% of US citizens agreed with it.When asked if companies should hire the best talents regardless of citizenship or visa status, 63% of all respondents said yes. But the answers split sharply along visa lines as 60% of US citizens said priority should go to U.S. citizens and green card holders. In contrast, only 11% of H-1B workers and 35% of permanent residents supported such a policy.
H-1B visa holders viewed as direct competitors
As per the result, over one in three professionals (33%) overall said H-1B visa holders create unfair competition and viewed them as direct competitors for jobs. Among US citizens, the figure was at 56%. Among green card holders, 27% agreed, while just 9% of H-1B workers felt the same.The survey comes almost two months after Vice President JD Vance slammed US tech companies for laying off American workers and prioritizing H-1B visa workers. Speaking at a bipartisan event co-hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum then, JD Vance said “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”.“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,” he said.“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 bulls**t story,” Vance added.
Microsoft , Amazon employees share mixed opinions
On Blind, professionals voiced contrasting views. A Microsoft employee wrote, “The H1B and other visa programs are out of control, and have become a way for the US to hand its best jobs to foreigners. We have enough SWE graduates in the U.S. now that these programs can and should be scaled back SIGNIFICANTLY.”An Amazon professional countered, “Stopping H-1B renewals just moves cutting edge development to another country. Tech follows talent.” A PayPal professional added, “Once someone is in the labor pool (i.e. they have a visa) they are 100% equivalent to anyone else in the labor pool. None of this “when there’s layoffs the H-1Bs go first” nonsense.”
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