The war on H-1Bs has a new front — and bipartisan support

In a one-two punch at employers, the Trump administration is following up its hefty $100,000 skilled visa fee with Project Firewall, an aggressive new immigration enforcement program. It is being billed as a sweeping effort to root out abuse of the H-1B visa program by some of America’s largest employers.

It’s rare for the federal government to systematically target companies for immigration enforcement; usually, any consequences fall on the immigrant workers, not their employers. The initiative shows the depth of President Trump’s intention to curb all forms of immigration. It could also, politically speaking, reestablish his populist bona fides.

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Voters under 30 continue to worry about the economy. Some of the young male voters so critical to Trump’s 2024 victory are drifting away. Trump’s signature legislative achievement, a mix of tax cuts and benefit cuts called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” remains unpopular.

Trump needs to regain some of that lost ground to retain Republican Congressional majorities in the midterms. Casting corporations as villains that are depriving skilled American workers of six-figure jobs by hiring foreigners — H-1B workers have a median wage of $108,000 — neatly fits his persona as a hero for “forgotten men and women.”

Yet it remains to be seen how vigorously the administration will go after the companies that employ hundreds of thousands of foreign workers through various temporary visa programs. The president has a complex relationship with the business community. He has invited billionaires and tech titans to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago and attend his inauguration, but has also feuded and fallen out with some of them. And the largest corporations will have armies of lawyers ready to challenge any attempts to rein in H-1B visas.

But that’s a fight Trump is bound to relish. No president has ever launched a program quite like Firewall, which the Labor Department said could be “the first time the federal government has sought to broadly enforce H-1B legal standards” in the program’s 35-year history. Until now, suspected non-compliance has been largely based on worker complaints, investigated on a case-by-case basis.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who will lead the project, said she will personally certify investigations, which will draw on data and resources from multiple agencies, including the Justice Department, US Citizenship and Immigration Services and others.

The goal, she said, is to “end practices that leave Americans in the dust.” Eliminating fraud and abuse, she said, “will ensure that highly skilled jobs go to Americans first.” An online ad campaign has already begun, with Labor Department posts that say, “End H-1B abuse. Hire American,” and feature a picture of Trump saluting.

This issue does not fall along strict party lines. Labor leaders have complained for years that the program was being used not to hire uniquely talented workers from around the globe, but to obtain cheaper foreign labor that suppresses wages, particularly in the tech sector.

In 2015, hundreds of American tech workers at Disney and other companies found themselves not just laid off but expected to train the foreign workers hired to replace them. In 2021, an Economic Policy Institute report found evidence of widespread wage theft, with thousands of H-1B subcontractors at companies such as Disney, FedEx, Google and others underpaying by some $95 million. The Labor Department “has done virtually nothing to ensure program integrity by enforcing the wage rules,” the report said. It recommended, ironically, that the feds conduct “a sweeping investigation into whether companies are systematically underpaying H-1B workers in violation of the law,” with heavy fines for violators and closure of existing loopholes.

Also Read| US senators reintroduce bill to reform H-1B, L-1 visa rules as Trump fee fuels scrutiny

Democrats — who are probably kicking themselves for not having gotten there first — have wasted little time boarding the H-1B reform train. On Wednesday of last week, Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, teamed with Judiciary Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa in firing off letters to Amazon and other users of H-1B users, inquiring why they hired H-1B workers while cutting other jobs. The senators want details on the number of H-1B workers the companies employ, at what wages and whether American workers have been displaced. Amazon alone was approved to sponsor an estimated 14,000 such visas in fiscal 2025.

Should Trump succeed in opening more high-paying jobs to younger American workers, the payoff could be big. But corporations may also think they can just ride out the storm, perhaps betting he will lose interest. They could try to fight Trump to a legal draw, or risk his wrath and offshore more jobs.

Trump is a disruptor by nature. He favors big, bold strokes and high drama — but often moves on quickly to the next issue. Weaning corporations off foreign workers will take persistence.