Did H-1Bs Rise 'Multi 100%' Under Biden? Louder with Crowder Claim

Louder with Crowder said there was "a multi 100% increase in H1 B's" under Biden. We rate it mostly-false — truth score 0.20, confidence 0.85.

USCIS petition approvals went from 426,710 in FY2020 to 399,402 in FY2024: a 6% decline, not a several-hundred-percent rise.

The claim comes from the 8 September 2026 episode "Trump Lays Down Gauntlet As Canada Secretly Starts Military Collaboration with China," at 1:09:25, inside a monologue about whether the two parties differ on immigration.

We steelman it first. One H-1B series genuinely did move: State Department consular issuance fell to roughly 108,000 in FY2021 — under COVID and Trump's Proclamation 10052 entry ban — then rebounded to 265,777 by FY2023, about 145 percent. And initial-employment denial rates fell from 24% in FY2018 to 4% in FY2021 and 2% in FY2022. The permissiveness shift is real and documented.

What fails is the volume claim. USCIS approvals across FY2020–FY2024 (426,710 / 407,071 / 442,043 / 386,340 / 399,402) span roughly 14 percent peak to trough, with two Biden years below Trump's FY2020. The cap on new cap-subject H-1Bs — 65,000 plus 20,000 for U.S. advanced-degree holders — hasn't changed since 2004, and Congress sets it, not the president. Even the most favourable metric yields 145 percent, measured from a floor installed by the previous administration's own entry ban.

Six weeks earlier the same show said "roughly 200%" (also rated mostly-false, 0.20). The multiplier grew; nothing in the record moved. We could not establish which series the speaker had in mind — "multi 100%" matches no published H-1B figure we could find, and we don't claim to know its origin.