Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday charged all Texas public universities and state agencies to freeze new H-1B visa applications until the next legislative session ends in 2027.
Under Abbott’s directive, public universities and state agencies cannot initiate or file for new H-1B visas until May 31, 2027, without written permission from the Texas Workforce Commission. Abbott said the freeze will provide time for state lawmakers to create “guardrails” for the H-1B program and for the federal government to implement its reforms.
State and federal leaders have increasingly scrutinized the H-1B program and how employers, including higher education institutions, hospital systems and public school districts, sponsor foreign workers in specialized fields.
Abbott has said he wants to identify what jobs H-1B visa holders are filling that cannot be filled by Texans. In his Tuesday letter to state agency heads, he suggested that some employers have failed to make “good-faith efforts” to recruit U.S. workers before seeking foreign workers.
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Meanwhile, the Trump administration is seeking to transform the H-1B visa program, including a $100,000 fee for new petitioners and a new weighted system for awarding visas that prioritizes workers with higher pay and skills.
“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, the program has too often been used to fill jobs that otherwise could — and should — have been filled by Texans,” Abbott wrote in his letter.
Dallas ISD is one of the biggest sponsors of H-1B visas among public school districts in the U.S., The Dallas Morning News reported in 2023. Federal data shows the district sponsors 230 H-1B visas as of Sept. 30, 2025. It is unclear whether Abbott’s directive will impact public school districts. Dallas ISD officials declined to comment on the letter Tuesday.
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According to federal data, UT Southwestern Medical Center is the second largest education sponsor of H-1B visas in Texas, with 228. Other institutions that have large numbers of H-1B visa holders include: the Texas A&M flagship with 214, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston with 171, and the University of Texas at Austin with 169.
Other Dallas-Fort Worth area districts and universities that were among the top H-1B visa sponsors in Texas include the University of Texas at Dallas with 73, the University of Texas at Arlington with 57, and the University of North Texas with 42. Southern Methodist University has 31.
Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, described Abbott’s directive as “undermining his own state’s workforce.” He added that the order will “diminish the value of teaching and research” at higher education institutions, particularly medical centers.
“Patients don’t care where their doctors and nurses are from, as long as they’re getting the best possible care,” Evans said in a release. “Texas needs its public universities to continue being the economic engines driving the state, not mere vehicles for Governor Abbott’s political agenda.”
In his Tuesday letter, Abbott directed all state agencies to provide the TWC with information about its H-1B visa sponsorships by March, including how many an agency currently sponsors, the countries of origins of the visa holders and job classifications and descriptions for them. He also asked for documentation that demonstrates “efforts to provide qualified Texas candidates with a reasonable opportunity to apply for each position filled by a H-1B visa holder.”
Abbott’s letter comes a day after the Quorum Report revealed that the governor asked the Texas A&M University System campuses to submit a list of all employees on H-1B visas, including their countries of origin and roles, by the end of the day Monday.
On Monday, Abbott told conservative radio host Mark Davis on his Dallas-based show that he doesn’t “see any reason” why H-1B visa holders would need to work in Texas public schools, although he acknowledged some may have special skill sets.
He echoed some of the Trump administration’s earlier comments about H-1B visa fraud, alleging without evidence that some workers who were admitted during the Biden administration or earlier have overstayed their visas. Trump has recently qualified that he believes foreign labor is needed to employ “certain talents.”
Houston Chronicle reporter Samantha Ketterer and Dallas Morning News staff writer Silas Allen contributed to this report.
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