Answering the calls of many conservatives, the U.S. Department of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has announced an aggressive response to H-1B visa abuse. This response, known as Project Firewall, involves 175 investigations into wage underpayment, fake job sites, benching, and failure to notify USCIS of terminations and has the potential to recover $15 million in back wages.
The decision comes after months of comments from President Trump signaling his desire to reduce “spamming” by Big Tech and prioritize American workers. Chavez-DeRemer promised to use “every resource” to protect U.S. jobs, emphasizing workforce investment. Likewise, Commerce Secretary Lutnick confirmed that the new $100,000 fee on H-1 B visas is designed to make foreign worker training uneconomical, ensuring that high-skilled roles go to Americans first.
It was Lori Chavez-DeRemer who offered more context. “The Labor Department is using every resource currently at our disposal to put a stop to H-1B visa abuse, and for the first time, I am personally certifying investigations into suspected violations to better protect American jobs,” she noted.
Likewise, a comment from the Department of Labor clarified its role. A press release said, “Under the leadership of President Trump, we will continue to invest in our workforce, ensuring high-skilled job opportunities go to American workers first.”
While the Department of Labor did not provide specific details on the 175 active investigations, it did note that over $15 million in back wages are owed to workers, and that a slew of other concerns are present as well. Some of those include fraud like foreign workers with advanced degrees who are paid very little, driving down wages and forcing qualified Americans to accept low wages. Others found that many employers didn’t notify U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when an H-1B visa holder was terminated, or waited for a significant period before notifying it.
Offering another view of what is going on, Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Commerce Secretary, noted, “The whole idea is no more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, then they have to pay the employee, so it’s just not [economical].”
These comments align with the diagnosis from Forbes analyst Stuart Anderson, who noted, “Trump administration officials understood that the $100,000 fee to hire new H-1B visa holders… would be prohibitive for employers, effectively blocking many high-skilled foreign nationals from ever working in the United States.”
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Watch Vance sound off on the H-1B visa here:
These comments align with official documents from the White House addressing the H-1B controversy. “Recent data reveals that unemployment rates among workers in computer occupations jumped from an average of 1.98 percent in 2019 to 3.02 percent in 2025. Reports also indicate that many American tech companies have laid off their qualified and highly skilled American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of H-1B workers,” a proclamation said.
The same document announced the payment for “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall restrict decisions on petitions not accompanied by a $100,000 payment for H-1B specialty occupation workers… for 12 months following the effective date.”
Offering a deeper insight into Trump’s reasoning, the release noted, “The severe harms that the large-scale abuse of this program has inflicted on our economic and national security demand an immediate response.”
Supporting these claims, the document alleged, ” one study of tech workers showed a 36 percent discount for H-1B “entry-level” positions as compared to full-time, traditional workers. To take advantage of artificially low labor costs incentivized by the program, companies close their IT divisions, fire their American staff, and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers.”
Wrapping up, Trump said, “I therefore find that the unrestricted entry into the United States of certain foreign workers who are described in section 1 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States because such entry would harm American workers, including by undercutting their wages.”