Republicans slam Purdue University for hiring H-1B workers for $149,000 software engineer position: ‘Aren’t there qualified Americans?’

Indiana Republican lawmaker criticizes Purdue University for hiring foreign software engineers H-1B visaquestioning why taxpayer-funded agencies can’t find qualified Americans to fill the same roles.Andrew Ireland posted on X that Purdue University is hiring “another foreign software engineer on an H-1B visa” with an annual salary of $149,000.“Does anyone believe that not a single qualified American can do this job for $149,000 per year? The same schools have graduated tens of thousands of computer science students,” he wrote. “This has to stop.”Ireland has previously expressed concerns about Purdue’s use of the H-1B visa program. Last month, he criticized Purdue University Northwest for filing an H-1B visa application to hire a foreigner as an assistant professor of marketing at a salary of $127,500.

On January 3, he wrote: “Taxpayer-funded Purdue University revealed it is hiring a foreigner on an H-1B visa to teach a marketing class.” He added: “Does anyone really believe that not a single American in the Chicago area can teach marketing for $127,500 per year? The same university even has a PhD program for marketing students”.This marketing position is listed on the Purdue Northwestern University-Hammond campus labor conditions application for the period June 1, 2026 through May 31, 2029.Purdue University has been an active user of the H-1B program. According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the university submitted 265 H-1B labor condition petitions in fiscal year 2025, of which 258 were approved.The H-1B visa is designed for U.S. employers to hire highly skilled foreign nationals for specialized positions, including technology and defense. However, some MAGA critics and Republican leaders believe that the United States does not lack domestic talent in fields such as marketing, software engineering, and data science, and offering the same jobs to Indian or Chinese workers from abroad is simply robbery.USCIS data shows that a total of 399,395 H-1B applications were approved nationwide in fiscal year 2024, an increase of 3% from 2023. Educational institutions accounted for 5.6% of this.Many “America First” proponents claim that excessive H-1B approval rates suppress wages and reduce opportunities for American graduates. Meanwhile, politicians including US President Donald Trump and business leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have defended the visa program as a way to attract highly skilled global talent, or the “best of the best”.