Since its inception in 1990, the H-1B guestworker programme has been steeped in controversy. The H-1B is a temporary work permit that is valid for up to six years and can be used to fill a wide range of occupations requiring a bachelor’s degree or higher. Most white-collar positions from journalism to accounting to software engineering are eligible for the H-1B programme. The purpose of the H-1B programme is to fill skills gaps in the US labour market. When American workers are not available, employers can then import foreign workers through H-1B. At least that’s how the programme is intended to function.Instead, it has become a cheap labour programme that fuels offshoring. Most of the programme is now being used to replace, and substitute for, skilled American workers with cheaper H-1B workers who are essentially indentured. Further, the programme is speeding up the offshoring of highwage jobs. Fifteen of the top 20 H-1B employers primarily use the programme to facilitate the offshoring of American jobs.While the abuse of the H-1B programme has been known to analysts and industry insiders for years, it is only now receiving widespread recognition by policymakers and the American public. How was the underbelly of the H-1B programme finally exposed to this wide audience? A number of factors contributed.First, newspapers reported two cases of wellknown firms that forced American workers to train their H-1B replacements. Southern California Edison, an electric utility, forced at least 400 of its American workers to train their H-1B replacements employed by TCS and Infosys. Disney, the quintessential American success story, replaced 250 of its American workers with H-1B workers employed by Cognizant and HCL. These kind of largescale replacements have been occurring for years, but for the first time they were reported by America’s largest newspapers, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The reports shocked readers and policymakers alike.The stories were so discordant with the rationale of the H-1B programme that even policymakers who may have preferred to ignore the abuses had to take notice. Instead of filling skills gaps, the programme was used, on a large-scale, to directly replace American workers. It was obvious that the Americans, not the H-1B workers, were the ones with the superior skills. After all, the Americans were training the H-1Bs. Further, the firms hiring the H-1B workers specialised in offshoring American jobs. Rather than keeping jobs in America as its proponents argue, the H-1B programme facilitated offshoring.The second contributing factor was the US Senate hearings held to highlight how the H-1B programme was being used to undercut American workers. This abuse finally got a human face at a hearing in February. Leo Perrero , one of the displaced Disney workers, gave a gripping testimony, describing the humiliation he felt of training his foreign replacement, an H-1B worker employed by HCL. Senator Jeff Sessions, who chaired that hearing, is a central player in H-1B reform since he heads the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration & the National Interest. Sessions has been a close advisor to Trump on immigration policy and was the first senator to endorse Trump's candidacy.The third contributing factor has been Trump's presidential campaign. Early in the process, Trump made immigration reform a centrepiece of his campaign and, in August 2015, he published his immigration reform position. It was his first major policy statement and it included a call for H-1B reform.While some of Trump's other immigration policies, such as a temporary ban on all Muslims from entering the country, have been described as extreme, his H-1B policies are very much mainstream. His position on reforming the H-1B programme is sensible, straightforward, and consistent with virtually all H-1B reform proposals made over the past ten years.His proposal has two basic components. First is to increase the H-1B "prevailing wage" so the programme can no longer be used for cheap labour. The prevailing wage is the minimum wage that an employer must pay an H-1B worker. Right now that wage is set far below the actual wages paid to American workers. As a result, employers have a profit motive to replace Americans with H-1Bs. The second component of the proposal is to require employers to actively recruit American workers before turning to the H-1B programme. Both of these proposals would fix the H-1B so that it works as it is intended: to fill skills gaps in the American labour market. These proposals are consistent with those introduced by policymakers that span the ideological spectrum, from liberal Democratic Senators Richard Durbin and Bernie Sanders to conservative Republican Senators Charles Grassley, Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions.Trump is responsible for elevating the H-1B programme to the stage of a presidential campaign. Questions about his H-1B position were raised at three of the Republican presidential debates, guaranteeing that there would be much more press scrutiny of the H-1B controversies. It also meant the issue was exposed to millions of Americans. Audience sizes for the debates shattered all prior records. Further, Trump isn’t the only presidential candidate proposing to reform the programme. His principal Republican rival, Senator Cruz, has proposed even tighter constraints.Of course, politicians are well known for promising things on the campaign trail they never implement while in office. For American workers, Barack Obama's about-face on outsourcing and trade policy is a sober reminder of that reality. Will Trump do the same if he's elected? Given the highly visible statements he’s made about the H-1B programme and the strong populist sentiment in the country, it may be trickier for him to abandon his promises.(The author is an immigration policy expert and associate professor of public policy at Howard University in Washington DC)