2026 US Midterm Results: What They Mean for Job Seekers and Immigrants (H-1B, OPT, DV, Green Cards)
If you’re looking for a job in the US or planning to immigrate, here is what the 2026 US midterm elections mean for you:
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Immigration policy won’t flip right away. Most of Trump’s immigration policies over the past two years didn’t come from laws passed by Congress. They came from presidential proclamations, executive orders and agency rules, plus enforcement funding already approved through 2029. To reverse them, Democrats would first have to get past the presidential veto.
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The real fight is in the courts. The US$100k H-1B fee, the DV-2027 green card lottery and birthright citizenship are all being decided by judges in the end.
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The effect on jobs won’t be visible until 2027. The new Congress doesn’t start work until January 3, 2027. If you want to work in the US, the things to watch right now are the new OPT fee, the wage-weighted H-1B lottery and the DV court cases.
What happened?
The US “midterm election” is the congressional election held halfway through the president’s four-year term. This time every seat in the House of Representatives, about one third of the Senate, and the governors of many states were up for election.
To pass a law in the US, both the House and the Senate have to pass it, and then the president signs it. So which party controls Congress decides whether the president’s policies can move forward.
The result: Democrats won majorities in both the House and the Senate, while the president is still Trump, a Republican. In other words, the opposition now controls Congress.
Part 1: What divided government means
Background: how the two parties see jobs and immigration
Neither party has an official “immigration platform” on jobs and immigration. The table below shows the positions of each party’s leading figures, based on bills they introduced in Congress and their public statements.
| Republicans (Trump) | Democrats | |
|---|---|---|
| Core idea | Fewer immigrants overall, strong enforcement, “American workers first” | Keep legal immigration routes, reform how enforcement is done, deal with green card lines that are too long |
| Work visas | Raise costs and the bar: the US$100k H-1B fee, the wage-weighted lottery, the proposed OPT fee. The party is split: populists want deep cuts, people with tech backgrounds want to keep high-skilled talent | The labor wing (Sanders, Durbin) also wants to tighten H-1B and go after outsourcing firms; another group (for example Gottheimer) wants to remove the per-country cap on green cards |
| Enforcement | Mass deportation, expand immigration enforcement, build more detention centers | Most leaders do not support “abolish ICE”; they want oversight and reform: ban agents from wearing masks, require a court warrant to enter homes |
But here’s the key point: on “protecting American workers,” the two parties actually overlap. Republicans Grassley and Tuberville and Democrats Durbin and Sanders jointly introduced a bill to tighten H-1B (S.2928).
Before getting into the details, let’s look at what Trump has done on immigration in the past two years.
What Trump did in the past two years
Two terms first:
- ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement): the federal agency that arrests, detains and deports people
- Fiscal year (FY): the US government’s accounting year, from October 1 of the previous year to September 30. FY2026 runs from 2025/10/1 to 2026/9/30
ICE’s own published numbers:
- Deportations: by mid-July of FY2026, more than 350000 people had been deported, more than in all of FY2025 (about 320000). The modern record is about 440000 in 2013, under Obama
- Detention: the number of people held in detention hit about 70000 in January 2026, the highest in ICE’s public data; in July it was still about 65000
- Budget: in 2025 and 2026 Congress passed two “budget reconciliation bills” (budget bills that need only a simple Senate majority, not 60 votes), providing about US$240 billion for immigration enforcement. ICE is funded all the way through FY2029
Work visas and other policies:
- Work visas: the US$100k H-1B fee (currently blocked by the courts), the wage-weighted H-1B lottery (in effect from FY2027), the proposed new OPT fee (up to US$100k, not yet in effect)
- Other: suspending the DV green card lottery, pausing immigrant visas for 75 countries, the travel ban, ending “Temporary Protected Status” for many countries (TPS: a status that lets people from countries hit by war or natural disaster stay and work in the US), and the executive order limiting birthright citizenship (ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court)
Where things stand: before and after the election
When the president’s party is different from the majority party in Congress, it’s called “divided government.” Below are the seats before the election, and the projections from major media (CBS, NBC, CNBC) the day after:
| Before the election | After (Nov 4 media projections) | |
|---|---|---|
| President | Republican (Trump, term ends January 2029) | No change |
| House (435 seats, 218 for a majority) | Republicans 218, Democrats 212 | Democratic majority; CNBC projects at least 235 seats |
| Senate (100 seats) | Republicans 53, Democrats 45 (plus 2 independents who side with Democrats) | Democratic side has the majority. Flipped: Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas |
What does that mean? To read the seat counts, you need to know two thresholds:
- 60 votes: most bills in the Senate need 60 votes to end debate and move to a vote (without 60 votes, the minority party can keep stalling, which is called a “filibuster”)
- 2/3: after the president vetoes a bill, Congress needs 2/3 of both chambers to override it (290 seats in the House, 67 in the Senate)
Democrats have a majority, but they haven’t reached either of those two key thresholds.
Put simply: Democrats have become a powerful gatekeeper, but not strong enough. They can block, investigate and bargain, but they can’t pass laws on their own or override the president’s veto. What changes is that debates will take longer and drag on more, with more deal-making and compromise.
What led to divided government?
The numbers below come from “exit polls”: surveys that AP, NBC, CNN and other media run outside polling places and with early voters, asking who they voted for and why. They get recalibrated in the days after the election, so only read them for the general direction.
1. Voters cared about the economy: money doesn’t go far enough
- About nine in ten voters said the cost of living was a key or major factor in their vote
- The top worries were food, gas, utilities and health care, each a concern for more than 80% of voters
- About 2/3 said Trump’s policies had made the economy worse; Trump’s approval was under 40%, which CBS says is the lowest for a president at a midterm
Why is the cost of living hurting so much? Two main reasons:
- The Iran war: the US went to war with Iran this year, and oil prices rose with it. Gasoline went up by more than US$1 a gallon, and since June the national average has stayed above US$4
- Tariffs: Trump raised tariffs on many countries, and US-China trade nearly stopped. The think tank Brookings estimates US farm exports fell by about US$15 billion
2. On immigration: not the top issue, but seen as “gone too far”
- Asked “what is the most important issue facing the country,” only about 1 in 10 picked immigration, far behind the economy at about 4 in 10
- But about 6 in 10 said Trump’s immigration enforcement had “gone too far,” while only about 2 in 10 said it “hasn’t gone far enough”
- Voters weren’t asking to open up immigration. They didn’t like how enforcement is being done now
3. Who shifted
In the 2024 presidential election, many young voters and Latino voters moved toward Trump. This time the direction reversed:
- Under 30: about seven in ten voted Democratic
- Latino voters: about 6 in 10 voted Democratic, compared with roughly an even split in 2024
- States: about 2/3 of Latino voters in Texas voted for Democrat Talarico; in the border state of Arizona, about 6 in 10 Latino voters backed Democratic Governor Hobbs; in the farm state of Iowa, about 6 in 10 voters said tariffs had hurt the local economy
4. What this means for the new Congress: cost of living first, immigration later
- Voters voted on gas, food, health care, tariffs and the war, so those will be the new Congress’s first priorities
- Most of the seats that flipped were in red states and swing states, where voters want order at the border. New members will most likely stay away from “amnesty.” On immigration, what Democrats are more likely to do is oversee ICE, not open up immigration
Part 2: What it means for job seekers and people moving abroad
Trump is hard to stop and things can still change, but one thing is close to certain: long-term anti-immigration laws are unlikely. Executive orders, proclamations and rules are things the president can do on his own, and most of Congress’s countermeasures would be vetoed. But the brakes can be applied through the confirmation of judicial nominees and through the budget.
What happens under divided government? The likely scenarios
First, the cards each side holds.
Congress’s cards:
- Agenda power: decides which bills get a vote
- Power of the purse: money Congress doesn’t appropriate can’t be spent by government agencies
- Investigative power: holds hearings and issues subpoenas to make officials testify
- Confirmation power (Senate): cabinet secretaries and judges need Senate approval
The president’s cards:
- Veto: Trump said before the election that if Democrats won, he would become “Mr. Veto”
- Executive orders and presidential proclamations: no need to go through Congress
- Enforcement priorities: who gets arrested, who gets deported first
- Nominations: the president nominates cabinet secretaries and judges
- Visas and consular operations: run by the State Department
The most likely scenarios:
- No major immigration bill passes either way: the president won’t sign Democratic bills, and Republican bills won’t get a vote
- Bargaining through the budget: Democrats attach ICE reform provisions to spending bills, and if talks fail, a government shutdown is possible. During a shutdown, visa interviews at consulates and the Labor Department’s H-1B paperwork (the LCA, a wage statement employers must file with the Labor Department before applying for H-1B) are more likely to get stuck; USCIS runs mostly on application fees, so it’s less affected
- More executive orders, and more lawsuits: with legislation stuck, the White House pushes policy through proclamations and rules, which then get challenged in court
- The few bipartisan bills that do pass: tightening H-1B. Bills that protect American workers are easy votes for both parties
The laws and routes Trump has used, and how Democrats can respond
Trump has pushed immigration policy mainly through six routes. Once you know which route a policy came from, you know whether it will change now that Congress has changed hands.
One law to know first: Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president the power to “suspend the entry of any aliens.” It’s Trump’s most-used tool.
| Route | Example policies | Status | How Democrats can respond |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presidential proclamation (under 212(f)) | Travel ban; US$100k H-1B fee; 75-country immigrant visa pause | The US$100k fee is blocked by the courts; the 75-country pause was ended by a court ruling in August; the travel ban is still in effect | Amend the law to narrow 212(f), but it would be vetoed. In practice, it’s up to the courts |
| Executive order | Limiting birthright citizenship | Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in June | Already handled by the courts |
| Agency rules (must be published first, with public comment) | Wage-weighted H-1B lottery; proposed OPT fee | The weighted lottery is in effect; the OPT fee is not yet in effect | Add “no funds may be used to implement” provisions to spending bills, but the whole budget package needs the president’s signature |
| Agency discretion (decisions the law leaves to the secretary) | Ending TPS and humanitarian parole; suspending DV; expanding expedited removal | The Supreme Court allowed ending some TPS and parole; the DV suspension was ruled unlawful by a court | Hearings, subpoenaing officials; amending the law to take back that discretion (also would be vetoed) |
| Wartime law (the Alien Enemies Act of 1798) | Deporting Venezuelans | The Supreme Court required notice first, so people can go to court | Amend the law to repeal or narrow it (would be vetoed) |
| Budget | Expanding ICE, detention centers | About US$240 billion already appropriated through FY2029 | The hardest to touch; can only add limits in new spending bills |
Who the judges are matters: which cases go to federal court?
First, two kinds of “court”:
- Immigration court: actually an administrative body under the Justice Department. It decides whether an individual can stay (removal cases)
- Federal court: decides on policy. Anyone who argues a policy is unconstitutional, or violates the Administrative Procedure Act (skipping the notice-and-comment process, or going beyond what the law authorizes), can sue in federal district court, then appeal to a circuit court of appeals and the Supreme Court
Recent immigration policies that went to federal court:
| Policy | Where it went | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Birthright citizenship | Supreme Court | Ruled unconstitutional, government lost |
| Ending TPS for Haiti and Syria | Supreme Court | 6 to 3, government won |
| Expanding expedited removal | DC Circuit Court of Appeals | Government won |
| US$100k H-1B fee | First Circuit Court of Appeals | Can’t be collected for now |
| 75-country immigrant visa pause | Federal district court | Government lost, ended in August |
| DV-2026 suspension | Federal district court in California | Government lost, processing resumed at the end of August |
Why the judges matter: federal judges serve for life. The president nominates them and the Senate confirms them. With the Senate under Democratic control, Democrats can delay or block Trump’s judicial nominees. That said, even though the Supreme Court has a 6 to 3 conservative majority, it still ruled against Trump on birthright citizenship. Not every case is decided along party lines.
Will DV-2027 go to federal court? It already has
First, what DV is: the Diversity Visa, often called the “green card lottery.” Each year it draws about 55000 green cards for people from countries with relatively low immigration to the US. In December 2025 the government suspended the program, citing security screening, and DV-2027 registration still hasn’t opened.
- Who sued: the immigration law firm Red Eagle Law sued the Secretary of State; the case is in federal district court in California
- Oct 14: the district court ordered the State Department to open DV-2027 registration by Nov 1
- Oct 29: the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals paused that order. The reason wasn’t “the DV suspension is lawful.” It was that the law firm may not have standing: it’s not a DV applicant, so it may not have the right to bring this case
- Another case: an individual applicant filed a separate lawsuit asking to open DV-2027 and DV-2028. An individual applicant is more likely to be found to have standing
- Will it reach the Supreme Court? Not for now. But DV is on a clock: DV-2027 visas are only available until 2027/9/30. The longer the courts take, the more likely those slots simply disappear
If you want to work in the US: the four routes
H-1B
What it is: H-1B is the US specialty occupation work visa, for professional jobs that require a university degree. There are about 85000 slots a year, and far more people apply than there are slots, so there’s a lottery.
- Now: the US$100k fee is blocked by the courts and can’t be collected for now. From FY2027 the lottery is “wage-weighted”: the government splits job salaries into four wage levels, and the higher the level, the more lottery entries (up to 4)
- After the election: the weighted lottery is an agency rule, which is hard for Congress to overturn. What’s more likely to pass is the bipartisan S.2928, and it goes in the direction of tightening: employers would first have to post the job on the Labor Department’s website for 30 days, the period during which they can’t replace American workers goes from 90 days to 180 days, and wage floors go up
- What does posting the job for 30 days mean? Before filing an H-1B, the employer has to show it looked for American workers. That adds at least a month to hiring, plus a record of “why no American applicant was hired.” The likely result: fewer companies willing to sponsor H-1B for foreign employees, especially small and mid-size companies without a legal team
- What does 180 days of not replacing American workers mean? For six months before and after a layoff, a company can’t use H-1B to fill the same kind of role. Over the past two years tech companies have often laid people off and hired at the same time. Going forward, companies with recent layoffs may simply stop sponsoring H-1B in the short term
- What do higher wage floors mean? Employers would have to pay at least wage level 2 (roughly the local median for that occupation). If a new grad’s salary is only at level 1, the employer either raises it or doesn’t sponsor. The weighted lottery already favors higher salaries, so new grads get squeezed twice
- A few more provisions in the bill: at companies with 50 or more employees, H-1B plus L-1 workers can’t be more than half the workforce; the Labor Department and DHS could audit employers without needing a reason, and penalties go up. These mainly target outsourcing firms that “place workers on site at client companies”
- How it could play out: the bill is still in the Senate Judiciary Committee and hasn’t been scheduled for a vote. If the new Congress pushes it, the most likely form is a standalone bipartisan “protect American workers” bill, or folding it into another big bill. Even if it passes, the Labor Department still has to write the detailed rules, so the earliest it could affect the lottery is the second half of 2027
- What you can do: factor the wage level into your offer negotiation, because it directly affects your lottery odds. Entry-level jobs at the lowest wage level will keep getting harder, so prepare a plan B, such as a US company’s offices abroad, remote roles, Canada or the UK
OPT / STEM OPT
OPT is work authorization that lets F-1 international students stay and work in the US after graduation, usually for 1 year. STEM graduates can extend it by 2 more years, which is called STEM OPT. Many international students use this time to find a job and enter the H-1B lottery.
- Now: on Oct 8 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposed new fees: US$70k for OPT and US$30k for STEM OPT, up to US$100k in total. The proposal says schools pay. It is not in effect yet, and the current rules still apply. Public comments are open until Nov 9
- Who would actually pay? The proposal says schools pay, but DHS itself says in the proposal that schools can pass the cost on to students or employers. In practice, that could mean higher tuition, or only a few schools willing to apply for OPT for their students
- Will international students go to other countries instead? In a survey of 828 schools, 92% of school administrators said that without OPT, international students would choose other countries. A survey by the think tank IFP also found that if the fees take effect, the number of students planning to stay in the US after graduation drops by about 80%
- How would employers be affected? Employers don’t pay the fee, but there would be fewer foreign graduates available for internships and trial periods on OPT, so employers’ talent pool shrinks too (Society for Human Resource Management, SHRM)
- How it could play out: after comments close on Nov 9, DHS has to review them and then publish a final rule, which takes effect 60 days after publication. The American Council on Education (ACE) has said it will submit comments and ask for the rule to be withdrawn, and advocacy groups expect a lawsuit, just like the US$100k H-1B fee. The most likely outcome: the final rule gets challenged in court as soon as it comes out, and the start date gets pushed back
- After the election: this is an agency rule. Congress can only block it with spending bill provisions, and the whole budget package needs the president’s signature. The real hurdles are what the final rule says and whether it gets challenged in court
- What you can do: if you’re studying in the US, watch for notices from your school’s international student office. If you’re planning to study in the US, add “can I stay and work after graduation” to the cost of choosing a school
DV green card lottery
- Now: DV-2027 registration hasn’t opened, and the case is at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Legally, DV still exists, with about 55000 slots a year
- After the election: a Democratic Congress makes “repealing DV by law” almost impossible (the repeal bill a Republican member introduced in October has no cosponsors). But whether it opens is still up to the courts
- What you can do: watch the official site, dvprogram.state.gov, and register as soon as it opens. Don’t believe “it’ll open after the election”
Green card backlogs
What it is: employment-based green cards (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3 and so on) have a limited number each year, and the law also says each country can get at most 7% of the total (about 26000). Too many people apply, so there’s a line. The State Department publishes a “Visa Bulletin” every month showing which filing dates are being processed.
- Now: the backlog is set by the State Department’s bulletin and has nothing to do with the election. People born in India, China, Mexico and the Philippines wait the longest. As of November, India EB-2 is still at people who filed in November 2013. The think tank NFAP estimates that an India EB-2 applicant filing in 2026 would in theory wait nearly 180 years
- After the election: removing the per-country cap requires Congress to change the law. Some Democrats are pushing for it (for example Gottheimer), and the House passed a similar bill in 2019, but it got stuck in the Senate. The new Congress would also need 60 Senate votes and the president’s signature, and groups such as hospital associations worry that people from other countries would be pushed out, so change is unlikely in the short term
- What you can do: if your country of birth isn’t one of those with the longest waits, the backlog is relatively stable, so stick to your original plan; watch out for consular interviews during a government shutdown
If you want to work in the US
- Watch the courts, not Congress: DV-2027, the H-1B fee and the OPT fee will all be decided in the courts and in final rules
- Treat the wage level as part of your job search criteria: under the weighted lottery, your salary is also your lottery odds
- Factor the cost of living into your offer: cost of living is what voters were most unhappy about, so when you look at an offer, include gas, rent and health insurance
- Reassess in Q1 2027: once the new Congress’s hearings, the FY2028 budget and the FY2028 H-1B lottery results are out, the direction will be clearer
This article was written on November 4, 2026. The seat counts and exit polls are preliminary results from the day after the election.
Sources
- Election results: CBS, CBS Senate, NBC, CNBC, Yahoo
- Voter analysis: AP Voter Poll (groups), AP Voter Poll (issues), NBC exit polls, NBC analysis, CNN, Forbes, NBC Texas, NBC Arizona, NBC Iowa, Brookings (rural economy), ABC (Iran war)
- Trump’s enforcement numbers: ABC (FY2026 removals), TRAC, Austin Kocher (detention numbers), NPR (ICE budget), Brookings
- Party positions: day1cpt, VisaVerge, Schumer and Jeffries statement on ICE, Grassley and Durbin on S.2928
- Legal routes and courts: American Immigration Council (212(f)), CRS (Trump v. Barbara), NPR (Supreme Court immigration rulings), ABC (Alien Enemies Act), VisaVerge (end of the 75-country pause), Al Jazeera (divided government)
- DV: Fragomen, The Migration, Visa Lawyer Blog, Envoy Global, Boundless (DV suspension)
- H-1B: Ellis, AILA FY2027, Wharton
- S.2928 text and analysis: S.2928 text (govinfo), K&L Gates, National Immigration Forum, Fragomen
- Impact of the OPT fee: SHRM, American Immigration Council, ACE, Higher Ed Dive, Forbes
- OPT: Vanderbilt ISSS, Yale OISS
- Green card backlogs: NFAP (August 2026), Newsweek, Telangana Today (November bulletin), CRS