More Than Visitors: How Visa Holders Boost—and Often Outpace—the U.S. Economy

They pay taxes. They fund programs they may never benefit from. It’s time we talked about visa holders as what they are: vital workers, not temporary burdens.

Each election cycle, debate flares over immigration: who gets to come, who gets to stay, and who supposedly takes more than they give. Lost in the noise is a group that lives in the gray zone between resident and guest: visa holders.

They are software engineers, seasonal farm workers, nurses, researchers, and students. They build bridges, write code, pic…