(José Niño, Headline USA) A layoff tracking firm has turned the H-1B fight into a map, and the map points at Texas.
LayoffHedge tweeted, “The 8 fastest-growing H-1B districts in America are all Texas Republicans…” The post promotes a new study from the firm that assigns certified Labor Condition Applications to congressional districts, drawing on the roughly 7 million filings its H-1B Visa Explorer tracks from fiscal 2015 through the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
The 8 fastest-growing H-1B districts in America are all Texas Republicans… https://t.co/szU00HPXTj pic.twitter.com/JLi6rTqP29
— LayoffHedge (@LayoffAI) August 11, 2026
Newsweek reported the underlying numbers first, and they cut against the tweet’s implication. Democratic held districts logged 5.17 million filings since 2015, more than triple the 1.69 million recorded in Republican held seats, with four vacant districts adding 56,596.
The heaviest concentrations sit in coastal technology hubs. California’s 17th under Ro Khanna leads the country at 323,966 filings, New York’s 12th under Jerrold Nadler follows at 259,001, and California’s 16th under Sam Liccardo ranks third at 233,165. Texas’ 4th under Pat Fallon tops all Republican seats at 106,892, ahead of Georgia’s 7th under Richard McCormick at 96,705 and Texas’ 24th under Beth Van Duyne at 81,784.
Growth flips that picture. Every one of the eight fastest expanding districts between fiscal 2019 and fiscal 2025 sits in Republican held Texas, a pattern that tracks corporate relocations and data center construction across the state. A LayoffHedge spokesperson urged caution in reading partisan intent into any of it, telling Newsweek, “The data shows where employers asked to place the work. It does not show that either party causes or drives H-1B usage.”
Those district patterns follow the state map. According to H1B Report, cumulative worksite totals from fiscal 2010 through fiscal 2026 put California first at 1,684,275 filings and Texas second at 993,563, trailed by New York at 779,382, New Jersey at 534,212, Illinois at 428,170, Washington at 407,237, Massachusetts at 338,769, Georgia at 310,027, Florida at 294,620, and Pennsylvania at 290,872.
Texas holds that second place spot in current federal data as well. Labor Department figures for the first quarter of fiscal 2026 show 20,628 certified positions in Texas, or 12.6 percent of the national total, with Austin, Plano, Dallas, Irving, Houston, and San Antonio supplying most of the volume. California, Texas, Washington, New York, and Illinois together claimed 67.3 percent of everything certified that quarter.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
