In November 2024, Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order “to protect the State of Texas from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) malicious espionage operations.” The official line was that they are going to “undermine the safety and security of Texas” by being so Chinese and being “hostile foreign actors” doing espionage. Obviously just fake reasoning, but whatever, cool, we all support it. So no more Chinese communists doing malicious espionage, right?
LOL, at least 961 Chinese nationals are working on H-1B visas inside Texas state government, nearly all of them at the public research universities run by Abbott’s hand-picked regents. And at UT Dallas, nearly half of the H-1Bers come from six countries Abbott’s own order designates as “foreign adversaries.” Across all agencies who responded, 29% of their H-1B workers are from what Abbott called “foreign adversaries.” India is not listed as a foreign adversary, even though Indians try to scam almost all Texans every single day, including 100% of our grandparents.
Current Revolt continues to monitor the H-1B situation, and it’s quite a situation indeed. Open records requests filed by the Texas Newspaper of Record detailed 3,551 visa workers across 65 agencies and universities.
In January, Governor Abbott “launched an investigation” into H-1B visa abuse, and demanded that taxpayer-funded jobs be “filled by Texans first.” I had friends calling me saying they saw the announcement on the news, asking me if it was real, and if they were all really going back. I had to break grown men’s hearts by telling them no. Current Revolt predicted “incoming kabuki theater” on the H-1B issue five days before he announced it, because Current Revolt lives in a perpetual state of launching investigations into H-1B’s.
We looked into a lead that the freeze was being violated. Turned out to be nothing of course.
According to state records obtained by filling out a form online, the policy of Abbott’s “freeze” turns out to be a 3-page email from Jerry, the Texas Workforce Commission’s HR Director, which he sent at 6pm on a Friday:
