JD Vance claims the H-1B visa program is “totally dysfunctional” and demands its termination.

JD Vance, the vise president of the United States, has described the H-1B visa program as “totally dysfunctional” and stated that he would be in favor of its elimination, claiming that American businesses have exploited it to replace American workers with less expensive foreign labor.

“My view is the H-1B programme is completely broken, and I’d be very supportive of just eliminating it. But while we have it, what we have to do is protect American workers,” the vice president said on Thursday in a livestream interview broadcast by Real America’s Voice. “The H-1B program has been totally taken advantage of, not just by technology companies, by accounting firms, by people who are basically defrauding the American worker,” said Vance.

“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,” Vance said. “That’s you destroying American jobs and defrauding the American people.”

The VP president continued to defend Trump’s record on the H-1B issue, noting out that discussions between him, the president, and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller resulted in the $100,000 H-1B fee plan after they came to the conclusion that Congress would not take anything to “fix” the program.

The thinking there was, if you’re just trying to replace an American accountant with a cheaper foreign accountant, then you’re not going to pay $100,000,” said Vance. “The idea, in other words, was to use that fee as a kind of gateway to ensure that people actually were using the program for what it was intended for,” he added.

President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr shared Vance’s interview on X.

Trump Jr. wrote: “Couldn’t agree more with this, and the only people who disagree are the open border lovers who want cheap labour.”

The $100,000 H-1B fee is currently under legal scrutiny. On October 1, a federal magistrate blocked the fee, stating that proper administrative procedures were not followed. This followed an earlier injunction against the fee. A September 18 executive order mandates that departments review employer layoffs when assessing H-1B applications, and the labor department is tasked with examining previously submitted labor-condition applications. This issue is particularly crucial for Indian professionals, who represent a significant portion of H-1B beneficiaries.

A second federal judge, Haywood Gilliam, also blocked the fee, ruling that the necessary rule-making processes were bypassed. The H-1B visa program allows U.S. employers to hire skilled foreign workers, a critical resource for certain industries despite concerns about hiring practices. President Trump aims to increase the fee significantly, framing the program as needing reform amid broader immigration restrictions.