Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas on Tuesday abruptly blocked state agencies and public universities from using skilled foreign worker visas in hiring, as conservative state leaders and the Trump administration seek to curtail the program.
Mr. Abbott, in a letter to state agencies, ordered an investigation into agencies and universities that sponsored foreign job applicants for what are known as H-1B visas, which are issued to nonimmigrant workers in a range of specialty fields. Texas is among the top states for such visas, along with California, New York and New Jersey.
Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida argued for limiting H-1B visas at his state’s universities, and this week, a Florida Board of Governors committee will consider pausing such hiring until early 2027. Mr. Abbott proposed the same time frame, freezing hiring until after the State Legislature meets next year.
The moves by Florida and Texas align with the Trump administration’s “America first” agenda. The administration in September imposed a $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions, arguing that employers had used the program to keep wages low, hurting American workers.
Mr. Abbott, who is running for re-election in November for a fourth term, has taken steps throughout President Trump’s second term to adopt and expand many of the policies coming out of Washington.
Mr. Abbott’s move on H-1B visas was immediately embraced by the state Republican Party, which called it “a great first step in the fight to protect Texas jobs.”
But some in higher education have pushed back against efforts to limit visas. Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, called the move “partisan interference in students’ right to learn” that would “lower the quality and diminish the value of education and research at Texas universities.”
More than 12,000 H-1B visas were approved in Texas in the 2025 fiscal year, according to an analysis of government data by the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research group.
Higher education advocates say that H-1B visa holders fill critical teaching and research positions in specialized areas. Some university leaders have also appealed to the Trump administration’s rhetoric about merit, arguing that hiring the best candidate for the job sometimes means an H-1B worker.
About 40,600 faculty members working in the United States hold an H-1B visa, according to an estimate from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources.
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, said the political uncertainty created by Mr. Abbott’s move discourages global talent from choosing American schools.
“Reductions in hiring could weaken research output, slow innovation and make Texas institutions less competitive nationally,” she said in an email, adding that Mr. Abbott’s move was “another example of government overreach.”
Mr. Abbott directed the state agencies and universities to provide the state’s work force commission with detailed information about the visas that have already been issued, including the country of origin of the recipients, the jobs for which each visa holder was hired and documents showing efforts to provide qualified Texans with a chance to apply for the job.
“Evidence suggests that bad actors have exploited this program by failing to make good-faith efforts to recruit qualified U.S. workers before seeking to use foreign labor,” Mr. Abbott said in his letter.
His office referred to recent news reports but did not provide examples of companies that the governor believed were exploiting the program. In recent days, a video posted by a reporter with BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard, a hard-line conservative news site widely read in the Texas Capitol, claimed to show H-1B visa violations around Dallas.
Brian Harrison, a Republican member of the Texas House and a vocal critic of the state’s large public universities, argued last week that the state government was “one of the biggest users/abusers of H-1B.” On Tuesday, he said he welcomed Mr. Abbott’s move.
“This is the nonsense that has been happening at the hands of supposed Republicans here in the Texas government for far too long,” Mr. Harrison said in a podcast interview with Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser, on Tuesday.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
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