Public universities located in Florida and Texas have been temporarily prohibited from bringing on new international faculty and staff on H-1B non-immigrant visas. There are worries that this might negatively affect research at higher education institutions within these states and that such prohibitions could be adopted nationwide.
On 2 March, the Florida Board of Governors, which regulates the state’s public university system, decided to halt the hiring of new employees on H-1B visas until 5 January 2027. Florida has around a dozen state universities engaged in research, with 10 categorized as having ‘very high’ (R1) or ‘high’ research (R2) activity. These public universities in Florida may continue their employment agreements with current H-1B visa holders and will also have the opportunity to renew these agreements during the interim phase. According to public estimates, more than 1000 faculty and staff members at Florida’s public universities are on H-1B visas.
Just under two months ago, Texas became the first state to impose a temporary halt on new H-1B hiring for public universities within its borders. On 27 January, Texas governor Greg Abbott instructed the state’s public institutions of higher education to refrain from processing any new H-1B applications for foreign staff until 31 May 2027. Texas is home to 23 public research universities that have an R1 or R2 designation, with an estimated more than 1500 faculty and staff at these institutions holding H-1B visas.
The recent changes enacted by the Trump administration have also facilitated states and public universities in rationalizing H-1B hiring freezes. For instance, in September 2025, President Trump instituted a $100,000 (£74,000) fee for H-1B visas that has rendered hiring faculty and staff through H-1B visas prohibitively costly for many smaller state universities.
‘State-level H-1B freezes at public universities will significantly complicate the efforts of schools trying to attract top faculty in chemistry and other scientific disciplines,’ expresses Connor O’Brien, a fellow at the Institute for Progress, a non-partisan think tank located in Washington DC aiming to accelerate scientific and technological advancement by concentrating on federal policy.
O’Brien observes that when academic departments search for new faculty, they typically seek specialists in very targeted subfields, and many leading researchers in these specialized domains are foreign-born. ‘Filling these faculty vacancies with top scientists is already challenging without arbitrary limitations like these new H-1B freezes,’ he adds. ‘In the long run, states that implement these pauses will generate less groundbreaking research, benefiting competing states.’
Concerns about the potential spread of visa bans
Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a data science expert and computer scientist at Brown University, shares similar concerns. He emigrated to the US from India on an F-1 student visa in 1994, earned a PhD in computer science at Stanford University, and transitioned to an H-1B visa in 1999 to work as a researcher at AT&T Labs in New Jersey. He ultimately received a green card in 2006 and became a US citizen in 2019.
‘There has been a series of attacks on the research sector over the past year, and universities in this country are already anxious regarding how many students to accept into their graduate research programs,’ Venkatasubramanian informs Chemistry World. ‘Now there is uncertainty surrounding H-1B visas, which makes it very difficult for foreign PhD researchers to apply for positions at public universities in those two states.’
He also highlights a broader worry regarding diminishing R&D investments in the US, mentioning that many foreign scholars aspiring to pursue PhDs have indicated that they now plan to apply to graduate schools in Canada, Europe, and other areas outside the US. ‘These developments in Florida and Texas have created a sense of uncertainty and anxiety, which is being discussed at universities across the country, adding pressure in that part of the pipeline,’ Venkatasubramanian continues. He expresses hope that this trend will not extend to other states.
Robert Cassanello, president of the United Faculty of Florida, which represents 5000 faculty members at Florida’s public universities, asserts that this decision will exert a ‘devastating impact’ on research in Florida, particularly in the hard sciences and engineering. Cassanello warns that such initiatives could proliferate. ‘In regions like Florida and Texas, which are strongly Republican, politicians may choose to follow suit,’ he indicates.
While similar actions have yet to be instituted elsewhere in the US, there is growing momentum in Republican-led states such as Oklahoma and South Carolina.