The elaborate visa system that enables foreigners to work in the US

The US tech industry is a big employer of H-1Bs, but these foreign workers are also teachers, doctors, and engineers, among other professions. If the visa is granted, an H-1B holder can stay in the country for three years, with a possible extension to six years.

H-2A

These visas are for agricultural jobs that are temporary or seasonal in nature and cannot be filled by US workers. Applicants can only be from 88 countries designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The visa is good for the period approved on the temporary labor certification — such as a harvest season — and can be extended up to three years. At that point, a worker must stay out of the US for three months before reapplying for another H-2A visa.

H-2B

Very similar to the H-2A visa, the H-2B is for workers who provide non-agricultural labor that is temporary. The State Department defines temporary as a one-time occurrence, seasonal need, peak load need, or intermittent need. Workers can come from 89 approved countries and the duration of their stay is the same as for H-2A workers.

The top industries that employ H-2B workers are resort and hospitality services, retail sales, landscaping, food service and processing, and construction. Trump reportedly regularly employs H-2B workers at his Mar-a-Lago Club and other properties.

H-2A and H-2B visa holders are often associated with workers who overstay their visas and become undocumented in the US — many of them from Mexico.

In 2023, 91% of H-2A visa workers and almost 65% of H-2B workers came from our Southern neighbor. Still, just 1.72% of Mexican nonimmigrants, including temporary workers, overstayed their visa and remained in the country in 2023, according to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which regularly reviews overstay rates. In fact, the DHS removed Mongolia from the list of H-2A eligible countries in 2022 after it estimated that 40.3% of Mongolian H-2A workers overstayed in 2019.

Other visas

There are also several types of so-called celebrity visas that big-time actors, international entertainers and artists, sports stars, and those with extraordinary ability in science, education, or business can apply for ( O-1A, O-1B , P-1A , P-1B , P-2 , and P-3 ). Traveling circus performers and theatrical ice skaters also can use these visas.

It was rumored that Argentine soccer great Lionel Messi obtained a O-1A visa when he came over to play for Inter Miami CF, an American professional soccer club, while Canadian singer Justin Bieber, South African comedian Trevor Noah, and Australian actor Hugh Jackman have reportedly used an O-1B visa.

There are also other temporary work visas for certain workers from Singapore and Chile ( H-1B1 ), workers in cultural exchange programs ( Q-1 ), business transfers ( L-1A ) and ( L-1B ), and those participating in training programs, such as educating kids with disabilities ( H-3 ).

Effect on the US workforce

In 2023 — the latest data available — the US issued 842,456 of these temporary visa categories recognized by the State Department. (This is not counting the visas issued to spouses or children of these workers.) If you add in the classifications the USCIS considers temp workers, that number rises to 958,425.

By far, the temporary work visa categories with the most issuances are H-2A, H-1B, and H-2B, representing 84.1% of the total work visa categories given out in 2023. These are also the ones that some critics worry are taking jobs from US workers or suppressing wages for Americans in similar positions.

The US government attempts to mitigate those concerns by mandating employers to file a labor condition application ( LCA ) or a temporary labor certification ( TLC ) with the Labor Department for approval first. Not all applications are approved.

An LCA requires employers to confirm that they will pay the H-1B worker either the same wage other workers with similar qualifications have for a given job or the prevailing wage for that role in the area it's located, whichever is higher. Employers also must attest that employing H-1B workers won't hurt the working conditions of workers in similar positions.

For instance, a big tech company in Silicon Valley simply can't hire a department of software engineers from India and pay them half of what Americans would take home in the same position.

A TLC requires employers to demonstrate they tried to recruit US workers and there were not enough qualified ones to fill the needed positions. Like the LCA, employers also must show that the employment of these workers doesn't harm similarly-employed US ones. They also must pay the state or federal minimum wage or the prevailing wage in that region and for that role, whichever is higher, and provide housing and transportation.

One sign that there aren't enough US workers to fill these positions is the huge increase in H-2A requests and approvals in the past 18 years. The number of certified positions has grown sevenfold since 2005, according to the US Department of Agriculture .

The government also caps the number of some of these visas. While there is no cap for H-2A workers, Congress has limited the number of H-2B workers coming into the US each year at 66,000. The number of new H-1B visas available each year is restricted to 65,000 plus an additional 20,000 for foreign professionals who graduate with a master’s degree or higher from a US university.

"Additional H-1B actually is associated with hiring additional US natives," said Mark Regets, a senior fellow at the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan public policy research organization. "You can't say for certain that the H-1B is creating that job, but it certainly contradicts the narrative that people are hiring H-1Bs to displace natives. What's happening is these firms that are growing are hiring both."

Still, research from the Economic Policy Institute has found that some companies, often in the tech field, are exploiting how the H-1B program establishes wages to pay those workers less than what a US worker in the same role makes — ostensibly getting cheaper labor. Even supporters of the H-1B visas, including Musk , acknowledge the program needs reform around setting wages.

Small, but mighty

Overall, the temporary foreign workforce is a tiny fraction of the total US labor force. In 2023, the number of issued temporary work visas (defined by the State Department) made up 2.7% of the foreign-born workforce and 0.5% of the 167.1 million workers in the US.

But don't let that fool you into thinking they're not crucial, especially to certain industries.

"Our needs for high-skilled workers in STEM have been growing faster than our ability to produce new workers in these areas," Regets said, though there is some research that concludes otherwise.

H1-B workers have also filled in shortfalls exacerbated by the pandemic, such as teachers in K-12 education and nurses in healthcare.

And then there's temporary agricultural workers — or H-2A visa holders. While interest in manual farm labor among Americans has been waning for a long time, an aging agriculture workforce is now intensifying the problem. A shift toward more labor-intensive crop production is driving the need for more manual farm laborers, according to the American Immigration Council , a pro-immigrant advocacy nonprofit.

"There's just simply not enough workers who are interested or able to take those jobs in the US," said Courtney Shupert, an economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives, a market research firm. "Typically these are pretty low-wage jobs, and there's not a lot of college-educated workers who want to work in meat-packing plants or in fields outside all summer long."

@JannaHerron .