Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia announced Thursday that she plans to introduce legislation that would “aggressively” phase out — and ultimately abolish — the H-1B visa program, placing herself at sharp odds with President Donald Trump even as both Republicans insist they are acting in the interests of American workers.
Greene’s bill would bring the program to an end with only one exception: visas for medical professionals, including doctors and nurses. Even that carve-out, she said, would be temporary. Up to 10,000 such visas could be issued each year, but the exemption itself would be phased out over ten years. Everyone else, she argued, should not expect the United States to serve as a permanent destination.
The proposal underscores Greene’s harsher approach to employment-based immigration. In a video posted on X, she said her legislation would “take away the pathway to citizenship, forcing visa-holders to return home when their visa expires,” contending that it would “restore the original intent of the visa: for it to be temporary.”
“These visas were intended to fill a specialty occupational need at a given time,” Greene said in the video. “People should not be allowed to come and live here forever. We thank them for their expertise, but we also wish them well so they may return to their own country.” She called the H-1B system “riddled with fraud and abuse” and accused it of “displacing Americans for decades.”
Her push comes only days after Trump publicly defended the use of foreign workers, a stance that has increasingly frustrated some of his populist allies. While Trump has long maintained that abuses of the visa system depress wages and undercut American workers, he has in recent months focused on reform rather than elimination. Last month, he signed a proclamation imposing a $100,000 one-time fee on H-1B visas, rattling the technology industry but stopping well short of Greene’s proposal.
The tension burst into view again this week during Trump’s interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “We have plenty of talented people here,” Ingraham asserted. “No, you don’t,” Trump replied. “No, you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn.”
Greene forcefully rejected that claim in her announcement, calling Americans “the most talented people in the world.” She linked her criticism of the visa program to broader complaints about rising health-care premiums and the handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein — part of a recent pattern of public disagreements with the White House and congressional Republican leaders. Trump responded by saying Greene had “lost her way.”
The congresswoman rejected that characterization in comments to The Hill, insisting she is “100% America first and only!” She repeated that message when unveiling her forthcoming bill. “It’s time to put American citizens first instead of foreigners first, and this has gone on and been an abuse for far too long,” she said. “Americans deserve a future. They deserve a chance.”
The White House pushed back Friday, with spokesperson Taylor Rogers defending Trump’s record. The president, Rogers said, has “done more than any president in modern history to tighten our immigration laws and put American workers first.” The administration, Rogers added, is “restoring accountability in the H1-B process” to ensure that it brings in “only the highest-skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations — not low wage workers that will displace Americans.”
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