President Donald Trump made headlines earlier this month when he announced major changes to the H-1B foreign worker visa program.

While that decision brought push-back from many on the left, one senior Democratic senator has admitted that Trump was right to act. 

Senator asks why companies are firing Americans while hiring foreigners

According to Breitbart, that acknowledgement came from Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who serves as minority white as well as ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As the website reported, Durbin and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley signed a letter sent to the CEOs of 10 major corporations.

In it they asked why companies are using the H-1B visa program to hire Indian and Chinese citizens while simultaneously getting rid of American workers.

"With all of the homegrown American talent relegated to the sidelines, we find it hard to believe that [you] cannot find qualified American tech workers to fill these positions allocated by the H-1B lottery program," the pair noted.

Researcher welcome's new $100,000 fee for visa petitions

"In evaluating the high unemployment rate for American tech workers, we cannot ignore the massive, ongoing layoffs ordered by you and your peers in Big Tech C-suites over the past few years," the lawmakers continued.

🚨 CORPORATE ABUSE OF THE H-1B VISA PROGRAM:

1. Fire American workers.
2. Blame it on “AI” or “tech advances.”
3. File thousands of visa petitions.
4. Underpay foreign workers in worse working conditions.

This can’t continue. pic.twitter.com/e3A5SZrywV

— Senate Judiciary Democrats 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryDems) September 25, 2025

"At the same time you have been laying off your employees, you have been filing H-1B visa petitions for [thousands of] foreign workers," Grassley and Durbin pointed out.

Meanwhile, Trump's new $100, 000 petition fee for H-1B temporary workers was recently welcomed by Simon Hankinson, who serves as a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation.

Hankinson points to "fraud, nepotism and corruption"

Yet although Hankinson described the move in a Fox News op-ed piece as being "a sorely needed first step," he insisted that more needs to be done.

"At a time when 6.1% of recent college graduates with computer science majors are unemployed, allowing thousands of foreign workers to compete against them on unfair terms makes no sense," Hankinson argued.

The researcher further complained that "fraud, nepotism and corruption have long compromised the H-1B process" while "[o]utsourcing firms and "body shops" rig the labor market to hire foreign workers over Americans."

"Let’s hope this is the beginning of more reform to put the H-1B back in its box and give Americans first crack at their own labor market," he concluded.