Saturday, October 10, 2026
A 596,000 decline in foreign-born workers since January 2026, combined with a parallel drop in labor force participation among US-born workers, has left employers in construction, healthcare, agriculture, and manufacturing unable to fill open positions. The labor shortage the crackdown was supposed to solve has deepened.
A federal judge has ended the Kansas law that let undocumented students who graduated from Kansas high schools pay in-state tuition. The Justice Department sued, the state's attorney general agreed with the lawsuit, and the judge entered a consent judgment. The governor and a student group asked to defend the law and were refused.
USCIS says its Vermont office revoked and denied H-1B petitions at an IT consulting firm where the wage classifications did not match the work. The agency named no company and alleged no fraud. What makes it more than a compliance notice is what the wage level now does.
The government is borrowing at a record pace while policies threaten to narrow the workforce supporting future growth and the federal tax base.
In a large number of metropolitan areas the working-age population grew for one reason only. Employers and local governments are now doing arithmetic they had not previously had to do.