Companies could face probes into their compliance with the H-1B visa program as part of the Trump Administration’s effort to clamp down on the program and force companies to hire more Americans.
The Department of Labor announced on Friday that it was launching Project Firewall, an “enforcement initiative” that will investigate employers for potential abuse of the H-1B visa process. The initiative may be the first time the federal government has sought to broadly enforce H-1B legal standards intended to protect both the H-1B employee and American workers, such as paying wages on par with other workers of similar qualifications or with the local prevailing wage and offering benefits on the same basis as for U.S. workers. Some employers are also required to have taken “good faith steps” to recruit American workers for the job before petitioning for H-1B status for an employee. Since the program began in 1990, suspected noncompliance has typically been investigated case-by-case based on complaints from workers.
“The Trump Administration is standing by our commitment to end practices that leave Americans in the dust,” Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said in a statement. “By rooting out fraud and abuse, the Department of Labor and our federal partners will ensure that highly skilled jobs go to Americans first.”
The investigation comes at the same time as the Trump Administration’s new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, up from a typical cost of around $1,700 to $4,500. In a proclamation issued on Friday, President Donald Trump said “systemic abuse of the program” to hire lower-paid foreign labor, particularly in STEM fields, has led to “large-scale replacement of American workers “ and “undermined both our economic and national security.” The fee is paid for by companies sponsoring new visas and went into effect on Sunday.
The initiative also comes amid the Trump Administration’s mass deportation campaign and broad crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration, including targeting international students, screening for “anti-American” views, and imposing restrictions on Chinese nationals. Earlier this month, the Trump Administration caused anger in South Korea and led some firms to question their massive investments in the U.S. after hundreds of Korean workers were detained in a high-profile immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in Ellabell, Ga. Trump has also rolled out sweeping tariffs on much of the world in an effort to both reduce the U.S. trade deficit and compel companies to manufacture within the U.S.
“Highly-skilled jobs should go to AMERICANS FIRST!” the Labor Department posted on X on Monday. “That’s why we launched Project Firewall to end H-1B abuse and ensure employers prioritize American Workers in the hiring process.”
The H-1B visa, considered a temporary nonimmigrant visa, allows employers to hire highly educated workers in “specialty occupations” for three to six years at a time. Congress awards up to 85,000 H-1B visas per year through a lottery system. There are around 730,000 H-1B visa-holders in the U.S., as well as around 550,000 dependents, according to a January report from immigration and criminal justice advocacy group fwd.us.
Labor investigation
In a first-of-its-kind move, the Labor Secretary will personally certify investigations into employers suspected of noncompliance. Experts have noted that the broad-based enforcement initiative is far more proactive than H-1B probes have historically been.
“The H-1B program has essentially never really been enforced,” Ron Hira, a professor of political science at Howard University, told the Washington post.
The Trump Administration has argued that employers, particularly in tech and other STEM sectors, have undercut American jobs by hiring foreign labor that may be lower-skilled than the qualifications for the H-1B visa, and that may be more willing to accept lower pay or worse working conditions than legally required. Outsourcing firms like Infosys and Cognizant, particularly in the IT sector, could be the first to come under scrutiny.
“They could go after wages and working conditions. They could look through the books. They could look at whether they are misclassifying workers,” Hira said.
If an employer is found to not be in compliance with the H-1B program, they could face penalties, including back wages, civil fines, and debarment from sponsoring future visas. The Labor Department will also coordinate with other government agencies to “combat discrimination against American workers,” it said.
Trump Admin carves out exceptions to $100,000 visa fee
The White House has tried to tamp down panic after the announcement of the fee sent companies and hundreds of thousands of workers scrambling over the weekend. Several companies, including Microsoft and Google, had advised their H-1B employees to remain in the U.S. or return immediately before the fee went into effect on Sunday. The White House clarified on Saturday that the policy will not impact current H-1B visas or renewals, and that H-1B holders can continue to travel as permitted by the program.
The White House also said on Monday that doctors may be spared the $100,000 fee. Medical associations and healthcare employers had complained that the fee was prohibitively high for a sector that is already facing labor shortages, especially in rural areas.
The fee “risks shutting off the pipeline of highly trained physicians that patients depend on, especially in rural and underserved communities,” Bobby Mukkamala, President of the American Medical Association, told Bloomberg.
“When you’re putting a doctor in the middle of rural Ohio or rural Indiana, and they have to serve the underserved—that kind of a price tag is going to wipe out a lot of health care for a lot of people across the country who really need it,” David Leopold, an immigration attorney at UB Greensfelder, told Bloomberg.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told Bloomberg on Monday that the proclamation “allows for potential exemptions, which can include physicians and medical residents.”
With the clarifications, the White House seems already to be walking back some of the most forbidding aspects of the change, a far cry from the Administration’s language over the weekend.
“Either the person is very valuable to the company and America, or they are going to depart and the company is going to hire an American,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had said on Friday. “And that’s the point of immigration. Hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people. Stop the nonsense.”
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