When Donald Trump tightened America’s H-1B visa program by imposing a $100,000 fee for high-skilled workers, the political sales pitch was simple: stop foreigners taking American jobs.
But the evidence is already clear, policies like this are a losing proposition. Two years ago a paper in Management Science suggested the opposite outcome is more likely. By shutting the door to skilled immigrants, the White House nudged America’s biggest firms to pack their bags and move the jobs offshore. And not just any jobs: high-skill, high-pay, innovative ones.
The study, by Wharton’s Britta Glennon, tracked what happened when U.S. companies that rely heavily on H-1B visas were denied the people they wanted to hire. Instead of scaling back, they expanded their operations overseas. For every visa blocked, roughly a third of a job was created abroad, often in India, China, or Canada. The more research-heavy the firm, the stronger the shift.
In other words, America’s loss was someone else’s gain.
This isn’t a story about low-wage manufacturing slipping away. It’s about the future of the U.S. economy, innovation and R&D, the kind of work that produces patents and underpins competitiveness. Glennon finds that when firms can’t bring the brains in, they simply move the brains out. And increasingly, the patents and breakthroughs that might once have been made in Boston or Silicon Valley are now being stamped in Bangalore, Beijing, or Toronto.
It’s an own goal, and a familiar one. The Trump administration’s short-term populism was dressed up as job protection, but the economic logic never stacked up. In a global economy, multinationals aren’t trapped within borders. They can, and will, set up shop where the talent is, or where governments let the talent in.
The lesson is clear: restricting skilled immigration doesn’t save American jobs; it exports them. Worse, it exports the kind of jobs that define long-term prosperity.
For all the talk of making America great again, the visa clampdown made America weaker in precisely the area it most needs strength: attracting and keeping the world’s smartest minds.
And if you think the world’s other economic powers didn’t notice, think again. Canada in particular has become the quiet winner, rolling out the welcome mat to the same engineers, scientists, and coders America was pushing away.
Policy choices have consequences, often unintended. In this case, the data show the Trump administration isn't protecting American workers, it's undermining America’s competitive edge.
The irony is thick: in trying to keep jobs at home, Washington sent them abroad.
My sources are your sources (except the confidential ones): Managaement Science, How Do Restrictions on High-Skilled Immigration Affect Offshoring? Evidence from the H-1B Program