Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott directed state agencies and universities to immediately freeze all H-1B visa petitions in a letter to state agency heads on Tuesday.
Abbott wrote that the Texas economy should “work for the benefit of Texas workers and Texas employers.” The governor cited “recent reports of abuse” and the federal government’s “ongoing review” of the H-1B visa program.
“No state agency controlled by a gubernatorially appointed head or public institution of higher education shall, without the written permission of the Texas Workforce Commission, initiate or file any new petition to sponsor a nonimmigrant worker under the federal H-1B visa program until the end of the Texas Legislature’s 90th Regular Session on May 31, 2027,” the letter read in part.
The governor also directed all state agencies to provide a report to the Texas Workforce Commission by Mar. 27, 2026, including the number of H-1B visa holders currently employed, their countries of origin and “documentation demonstrating efforts to provide qualified Texas candidates with a reasonable opportunity to apply for each position filled by an H-1B visa holder.”
“Rather than serving its intended purpose of attracting the best and brightest individuals from around the world to our nation to fill truly specialized and unmet labor needs,” Abbott wrote. “The program has too often been used to fill jobs that otherwise could—and should—have been filled by Texans.”
The governor wrote in an X post that “Texans come first.”
Abbott is also the first governor to freeze H-1B petitions statewide in the country. Florida’s state universities face a similar ban if the state university system’s Board of Governors adopts the rule in its Jan. 28 meeting.
Texas approved over 40,000 H-1B visa petitions in fiscal year 2025, according to data from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). The state is second in the nation for H-1B visa approvals, led only by California with over 80,000 petitions approved.
The governor’s directive comes a month after a federal judge ruled in favor of the Trump administration in December 2025, allowing President Donald Trump to impose a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa petitions. Trump announced the new fee in a September 2025 proclamation, writing that the program has been “deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.”
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