Fact check: Sanders says H-1B visa holders hired as dog trainers, massage therapists - WRAL News

[Paul Specht]

A fight erupted on social media in late December pitting allies of President-elect Donald Trump against one another on the topic of visas for highly skilled immigrants.

MAGA influencer Laura Loomer denounced the H-1B visa program that allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers with certain skill sets. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called it a "scam." On the other side, billionaire Elon Musk, a former H-1B visa holder whose companies employ such visa holders, called for the program’s reform but defended it as an important talent recruitment mechanism.

Trump, who sought reforms of the H-1B program during his first presidential term, sided with Musk.

"I have many H-1B visas on my properties," Trump told the New York Post in late December. "I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program."

Days later, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., disputed Musk, saying corporations abuse the program as a way to get richer and should recruit American workers first.

"If this program is really supposed to be about importing workers with highly advanced degrees in science and technology, why are H-1B guest workers being employed as dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers? Can we really not find English teachers in America?"

During the 2024 campaign, Trump’s immigration agenda largely focused on promises to reduce illegal immigration; he didn’t talk much about work visas. But the recent social media battle may foreshadow tensions within the incoming Trump administration over the future of nonimmigrant visas.

"It is too early to tell which side will prevail in this battle," said Stephen W. Yale-Loehr, a retired Cornell University immigration law professor. "People like Elon Musk want to preserve H-1B visas. Other Trump administration officials like Stephen Miller want to restrict all immigration, including H-1Bs."

We examined Sanders’ statement about the types of workers who obtain H-1B visas. Here’s the rub with his claim: Employers can — and have — sought foreign workers as dog trainers and massage therapists. But Sanders is plucking out very rare situations (teachers are more common). The majority of people with the visas have jobs in the tech industry, not the jobs Sanders cited.

Majority of H-1B holders are in computer jobs, but some are teachers​

The H-1B visa program lets employers temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty fields. The majority of these workers have been hired in STEM occupations, with about two-thirds working in computer-related fields, according to the Congressional Research Service. STEM refers to science, technology, engineering and math occupations. Most H-1B visa holders come from India.

Prospective H-1B employers must attest that they will pay the H-1B worker the greater of the actual wages paid to similar employees or the prevailing wages for that occupation.

To qualify for the nonimmigrant visa, the worker must hold a specialized degree, license or training required by the occupation. The status is generally valid for up to three years and renewable for another three years, but can be extended if the employer sponsors the worker for a green card.

Congress caps annual new H-1B visas at 85,000 per fiscal year, including 20,000 for noncitizens who earned advanced degrees.

The program has long been a subject of debate. Proponents say the visas allow American employers to fill gaps and allow them to compete with other countries and recruit the "best minds." Critics point to fraud or abuse in the program and say they favor policies that incentivize hiring Americans.

Employers apply to the Labor Department to use the program. Virtually every application is approved, allowing employers to apply for employee visas through the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of State.

In 2023, most visa approvals were for people who work in computer-related jobs; 6% went to people working in education, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, although the agency’s data didn’t specify how many were English teachers. It also did not mention dog trainers, cooks or massage therapists.

Asked for evidence behind Sanders’ statement, a Sanders spokesperson sent us links from a third-party website that showed employers’ Labor Department applications filed from 2020 to 2024 included requests for visas for dog trainers, massage therapists, English teachers and even cooks.

But those links did not show whether the applications were approved (the government calls that "certified") or whether the employers were successful in getting the visas. And it represented a tiny speck of the applications — for example, three applications for the dog trainers, two for massage therapists and 10 for cooks. Requests for English teachers were more plentiful in the data Sanders’ office pointed us to — about 100 — but still represented a small fraction of the overall pool of applications filed during those years.

"There are a decent number of H-1Bs for English teachers, and that's not inappropriate because the jobs usually require a college degree," said David Bier, immigration studies director at the libertarian Cato Institute. "They are usually teaching English as a second language, and many schools think it is helpful to know Spanish or another language while teaching English. It can be especially difficult for rural districts to find teachers in general, let alone ones with dual language ability."

The Dallas Morning News, a PolitiFact partner, reported that in fiscal year 2022, the Dallas school district sponsored 232 workers on H-1B visas, the largest number of any district in the country. Most of the H-1B holders were bilingual teachers in the district, where about half of the students do not speak English as their primary language. The district has hired teachers through the H-1B program for 25 years.

Smaller school districts have also filled vacancies with H-1B visas. Jackson, Mississippi, public schools, which have about 17,000 students, have five high school English teachers on H-1B visas, plus teachers for math and science, said Sherwin Johnson, a district spokesperson. The teachers fill critical shortage areas, Johnson said.

Nationwide teacher shortages, and scarcity of qualified bilingual teachers, have been widely reported. But does the United States have a shortage of dog trainers?

Sanders is barking up the wrong tree here. The data Sanders’ sent us showed only two organizations that sought dog trainers, and we reached one of them.

Patrick Glines, CEO of Guide Dogs of Texas, told PolitiFact that before he applied for a visa, he advertised for about two years to fill a position to train dogs for people who are blind, and had no luck. The job of training dogs for people who are blind is "incredibly niche" and is different from training a dog who has behavior issues, Glines said. It takes about three years until someone can do the job on their own.

Glines ended up training a man in Chile, so he hired him through an H-1B visa.

"In this situation, it has been a significant help for us," Glines said. "It is absolutely a one-off for me, I doubt I will ever apply for another one. In this one instance it has been incredibly beneficial for people who are blind in Texas."

The Labor Department posts employers applications online each quarter, and for the most recent quarter, most of the jobs we saw were within the tech and sciences sectors — some for cooks or teachers and only one for a massage therapist.

Employers must prove that a job meets the visa requirements.

"Technically, the rule for H-1B is that the job requires the training that comes with at least a bachelor’s level education or its equivalent," said Daniel Costa, director of immigration law and policy research at the Economic Policy Institute. "So if it is a specialized masseuse job that requires that level of education, theoretically it could qualify. The burden would be on the employer to make the case to USCIS."

Costa noted that a law firm wrote on its website that, "Years ago, we saw H-1B approvals for a massage therapist, an airline pilot, and an assistant college sports coach. In most cases these jobs do not require a bachelor’s degree and would almost definitely not be approved today." (The Massachusetts law firm has since closed.)

We asked Sanders’ spokesperson whether he had data showing how many H-1B visa holders were ultimately hired as English teachers, cooks, massage therapists and dog trainers and did not get a reply to that question. To see what H-1B applications were granted, we would need access to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data (generally filing Freedom of Information Requests with the federal government is a lengthy process.)

PolitiFact ruling​

Mostly False

Sanders said H-1B guest workers are "being employed as dog trainers, massage therapists, cooks, and English teachers."

Data shows the majority of the workers who obtain H-1B visas work in science and technology fields. In 2023, about 65% of approved petitions were for workers in computer-related jobs and 6% were in education, but they were not all English teachers.

Although Sanders’ office pointed to a sampling of employer applications submitted to the Labor Department requesting visas for massage therapists, cooks and dog trainers, that data didn’t show how many actually got visas. And his statement ignored that in some cases even these occupations require specialized training, such as being able to train dogs for blind people or teaching students in two languages.

By plucking out random applications, Sanders leaves voters with a distorted picture of the majority of the job titles held by H-1B visa holders.

The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.