The Dictatorship

Trump cited my research to propose a terrible idea for work visas

Published

9 months ago

September 26, 2025

Trump cited my research to propose a terrible idea for work visas

Last week, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation declaring a requirement that employers pay a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas. The announcement has created considerable outcry from employers, reflecting H-1B’s status as the country’s biggest work visa program and an important pathway for U.S. employers to hire skilled talent from abroad. To my surprise, Trump’s proclamation seemed to cite a study that I co-authored for the Economic Policy Institute, showing how some employers have taken advantage of the visa to underpay college-educated employees.

It’s true that the H-1B program is deeply flawed. But the $100,000 fee on employers won’t fix what’s wrong with the program and could have unintended consequences. Large firms and those that already pay lower wages will have less difficulty paying the fee, while startups and smaller firms that offer fair or above-market wages will struggle to pay it. Rather than the administration’s misguided and poorly implemented idea, there are much better ways to protect workers, whether they are H-1B employees or U.S.-born workers or green card holders already employed in the United States.

The good news is that the administration is implementing or considering two regulations that could go a long way in curbing employer abuses of the visa.

There are close to 600,000 total H-1B workers in the United States. Roughly two-thirds of H-1B workers fill jobs in computer-related and information technology occupations, with the rest working other professional jobs as accountants, doctors, university professors and many others. But the H-1B program has drifted far from its purpose of filling labor shortages with workers who possess rare skills. And weak labor safeguards are to blame.

First, U.S. employers are not required to advertise jobs to U.S. workers and recruit them before hiring H-1B workers. Employers claim there are labor shortages of skilled workers — often despite evidence to the contrary — but are ultimately not required to test the labor market to see if this is true. Instead, they can completely bypass the U.S. workforce.

Second, the rules for H-1B visas require that those workers be paid a fair wage according to U.S. standards. However, in practice, the rules allow the majority of H-1B workers to be vastly underpaidearning less than the true market wage for their occupation and location.

Third, the way visas are allocated is problematic: As Bloomberg reported last yearstaffing companies that pay the lowest wages allowed by law easily exploit the random lottery system that allocates H-1B visas and eat up a large chunk of the 85,000 visas that are subject to the annual cap. (Another 56,000 visas were issued last year to firms that are not subject to the cap.)

Fourth, lack of federal enforcement has allowed companies to underpay H-1B workers by tens of millions of dollars. While some H-1B workers do possess rare skills that benefit the U.S. economy, most who are admitted are classified as filling entry-level jobs that do not require advanced skills. Because of visa rules, H-1B workers are placed in working arrangements akin to indentured servitude. H-1B rules ultimately subsidize the outsourcing and offshoring of U.S. jobs and even incentivize firms to directly replace their U.S. workers with H-1B workerswho can be legally underpaid compared with the market rate for local workers. Just this week, two prominent senators — Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois — penned a letter calling out the biggest tech employers for laying off thousands of U.S. workers while simultaneously hiring thousands of H-1B workers.

There are several clear and simple steps that the Trump administration can take to fix H-1B, if this White House is serious about improving the program and protecting workers. None of these steps involve announcing a large fee that creates chaos and uncertainty: The fee is already in effect, for instance, even though there isn’t even a process or a form yet allowing employers to pay it.

Given the administration’s cuts at key agencies, there may not be many staffers left to enforce any new H-1B rules.

The good news is that the administration is implementing or considering two regulations that could go a long way in curbing employer abuses of the visa. One is mentioned at the end of Trump’s proclamation, which directs the Department of Labor to craft a regulation to raise wage rates for H-1B workers. If a rule is ultimately proposed and the final version requires that H-1B workers be paid at least the local median wage for their specific occupation, it would go a long way to fixing the program.

The other new rule that’s needed would require the Department of Homeland Security to prioritize H-1B visas for the most highly-skilled and -paid workers, rather than through the current lottery system. This week, DHS made public a proposed rule that purports to address this, by giving higher-wage H-1B jobs a better chance of being selected, though it’s too soon to tell if this would work.

While these two rules hold a lot of promise, the Trump administration’s disastrous record on worker rights means we should withhold judgment until the rules are finalized and enforced. At the end of the first Trump administration, DOL and DHS proposed rules to update the wage and lottery rules, but they were issued so haphazardly that it’s hard to tell if Trump actually wanted them to ever go into effect. And given the administration’s cuts at key agencies, there may not be many staffers left to enforce any new H-1B rules.

Other actions Trump could take include closing the loophole that incentivizes outsourcing — where H-1B workers are sent to third-party sites and often directly replace U.S. workers. The administration could also investigate rampant wage theft by employers, and screen employers so those with a track record of violating labor and employment laws are prohibited from hiring through H-1B.

Both progressive and conservative legislators have called for these fixes, as well as introduced them as legislation. Could the Trump administration actually improve H-1B and raise wages and labor standards, rather than just issue a poorly designed and targeted fee on H-1B employers? We’ll find out in the coming months.

Daniel Costa

Daniel Costa is the director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute.

The Dictatorship

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Published

2 hours ago

June 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Millions drop Obamacare health coverage after subsidies expire and costs rise

Jun. 29, 2026, 2:04 AM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — About 3 million fewer people in the United States had Affordable Care Acthealth insurance plans in February compared with the same time last year, according to new federal data.

In the reportreleased Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services suggested the 13% drop in enrollment from 22.1 million people in 2025 to 19.2 million this year could be attributed to a federal crackdown on fraudulent or “phantom” enrollment. But health analysts said it was more likely related to the Jan. 1 expiration of federal subsidieswhich caused a surge in plan costs that resulted in many people being unable to pay their premiums.

“We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage,” said Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF, citing survey findings on people who had left their plans. “This coverage loss happened at the same time millions of people faced double or even triple digit increases in their premium payments.”

The new data, compiled in April but showing coverage in February, represents the government’s first official look at how people’s inability to pay their first bills this year affected total enrollment. That is because the figures capture the marketplace after a nonpayment grace period expired.

A federal estimate in Januaryshowed that about 800,000 fewer people had signed up for ACA plans compared with the same time last year, marking the first time in the past four years that enrollment had been down from the previous year at that point in the shopping window.

Cox said KFF expects the total number of people in the government healthcare program to continue to declinethroughout the year, potentially to a low of about 17.5 million. That would be a significant drop for the government’s flagship subsidized health insurance program for working-age people who do not qualify for Medicaid. In recent years, ACA plans have become a popular choice for gig workers, farmers, ranchers, hairstylists and others without health coverage through an employer.

The ACA subsidies that expired this year were at the center of a bitter fight in Congress last fall, with Democrats and some Republicans calling for their renewal. Sharp increases in health costs across ACA and other health insurance programs come as voters in the approaching November elections say affordability is among their top concerns.

The Dictatorship

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Rep. Julia Letlow wins Louisiana GOP Senate primary runoff

Jun. 27, 2026, 9:51 PM EDT

Rep. Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s Republican Senate primary runoff Saturday, defeating former Rep. John Fleming.

Her win comes as a victory for President Donald Trump, who has endorsed her repeatedly throughout the race — including before she was even officially running.

Letlow made history in 2021 when she became the first Republican woman to represent Louisiana in Congress. In that special election, she won the seat that her late husband, Luke Letlow, had won prior to dying of complications related to Covid-19 in December 2020.

Letlow had no political experience prior to running for her late husband’s seat. She holds a doctorate in communication from the University of South Florida and worked as an administrator for Tulane University and the University of Louisiana, according to her LinkedIn page. Nonetheless, she won the special election House race with nearly 65% of the vote.

In Congress, she has served on the appropriations and education committees, and has been a reliably MAGA Republican.

Letlow’s win also comes as a rebuke to Fleming, who loaned himself more than $11 million, according to the Federal Election Commission, and tried running for the same seat in 2016 only to finish in fifth place in the nonpartisan primary. (Letlow did not loan her campaign any money, and took in more than $5.35 million compared to Fleming’s more than $12.1 million, FEC filings show.)

Trump has played a key role in the race. In addition to backing Letlow early on, the president also helped tank Republican incumbent Sen. Bill Cassidy’s re-election campaign in last month’s primary, based on the senator’s record of bucking his party and voting in favor of Trump’s second impeachment. In the primaryLetlow earned nearly 45% of the vote, giving her a healthy lead over both Fleming, who received about 28% of the vote, and Cassidy, who earned nearly 25%.

Ahead of Saturday’s runoff, polling showed Letlow and Fleming in a close race, with Letlow retaining a small lead in several polls.

Letlow will now proceed to the November general election to face off against the Democratic nominee, farmer Jamie Davis, who came out on top in tonight’s Democratic primary runoff.

The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2008, when Mary Landrieu won her last term in office.

Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.

The Dictatorship

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Published

12 hours ago

June 28, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

‘Horrifying’: Pulte’s choice for top spy aide stokes fears of Trump vote tampering

Jun. 28, 2026, 1:36 PM EDT

Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligencehas stirred fear by choosing as his chief of staff a GOP election lawyer who oversaw a poll watching program that included Jack Posobiec and other conservative conspiracy theorists. The lawyer, Christina Norton, also appears to have no experience working in the intelligence community.

“It is horrifying,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW Saturday. “Not only does Norton have absolutely no background, experience or expertise in national security or intelligence, but her principal qualifications appear to be loyalty to Pulte and an embrace of absurd election-interference conspiracies.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who has been a vocal critic of Pulte, also raised concerns about election integrity on Sunday while taking shots at the director of national intelligence and the office itself.

“We should eliminate the DNI, and we should eliminate Pulte from the DNI until that happens,” he said on BLN, adding, “I am concerned that we’re gonna continue to cast doubt on elections in November and erode what has been a 250-year tradition of a peaceful transition of power.”

Pulte’s choice of Norton is also likely to increase concerns among Democrats that President Donald Trump intends to use the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to interfere in the midterm elections. Pulte, a loyalist with no intelligence experience, has used his current position as head of federal mortgage agencies to refer political rivals of the president for federal criminal prosecution.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., told MS NOW on Sunday that the choice “just confirms” that the “only job qualification is absolute political loyalty and devotion to Donald Trump.” But he expressed faith in the judicial system during an appearance on “The Weekend,” noting that “right now we have federal courts across the land that are rejecting their various attempts to take over the election process. Nine different federal courts have rejected the claim that the president, by executive order, can compel the states in the union to turn over all of their voter lists to Donald Trump and to the White House.”

The New York Times first reported Norton’s appointment.

The former senior intelligence official, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation, told MS NOW the choice also “signals as clearly as could be that Pulte has been put at ODNI to misuse the awesome power of the U.S. intelligence community to interfere in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Norton, reached by MS NOW by telephone, declined to comment and referred questions to an ODNI spokesperson. The spokesperson declined to comment on Norton but defended Pulte’s tenure.

“Acting Director Pulte and his team are focused on carrying out President Trump’s national security priorities while faithfully executing ODNI’s statutory mission,” the spokesperson told MS NOW. “We are leading the Intelligence Community to provide President Trump with elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., appearing on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, said his objection to Pulte is “that he used personal information to target a political enemy of the president,” a reference to New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“You should not be using the force of government to crash upon somebody just because the person in charge does not like them or finds them inconvenient. The fact that Bill did that is disqualifying for someone to be the director of national intelligence,” Cassidy said.

Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that Congress would ensure that the ODNI under Pulte will “report on legitimate foreign threats to elections, not Donald Trump’s imaginary ones.”

Himes warned that, “Trump was explicit when he appointed Bill Pulte to a job he had no qualifications for that he had elections in mind.”

Trump has said in interviews with the news media that he would like to see Pulte shrink the size of the ODNI and investigate election fraud. Pulte’s predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard, participated in investigations in Georgia and Puerto Rico to find proof of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Democrats and some former intelligence officials say they worry that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates in the midterms.

Pulte could falsely claim foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines, they say, and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats during the midterms. Or Trump could instruct Pulte to be present if FBI agents seize ballots and election records in November as they did earlier this year in Fulton County, Georgia.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned in a statement on Friday that Pulte should not use his position to spread Trump’s false election conspiracy theories.

“The mission of ODNI is to identify and counter foreign threats, not to import election denialism into the Intelligence Community,” Warner said. “Americans have every reason to fear that this administration is once again eroding the wall between our intelligence agencies and domestic elections.”

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.