AUSTIN, TX – Zaira Garcia, Regional Government Relations Director at FWD.us, issued the following statement today in response to Governor Greg Abbott’s directive halting new H-1B visa petitions at Texas public universities and state agencies:
“Texas has built its economic strength and global competitiveness by attracting the best talent in the world, particularly at our public universities and research institutions like the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Freezing access to H-1B visas threatens to undermine that success and risks slowing the innovation that has made Texas a national leader.
“H-1B professionals are filling highly specialized roles that fuel research breakthroughs, train future workers, and drive economic growth in Texas and beyond. In 2023, more than a quarter of new H-1Bs issued went to people with a master’s, doctorate, or professional degree. Immigrants have played an outsized role in American innovation—half of the 2025 U.S. Nobel Prize winners in science are immigrants. Policies that cut off access to global talent put that legacy, and Texas’s future, at risk.
“Texas should be doubling down on smart, common-sense policies that strengthen innovation and opportunity, not putting up new barriers that make it harder for our public institutions to succeed.”
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