Nearly 200 investigations into potential abuses of the H-1B visa program have been launched as part of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) efforts to “combat discrimination against American workers,” agency officials reveal to Breitbart News.
At the helm of the massive H-1B fraud initiative is Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who told Breitbart News that she is personally signing investigations — the first time a secretary has done so in American history.
“We are deploying every tool at the department’s disposal to root out H-1B visa abuse and safeguard high-skilled American jobs,” Chavez-DeRemer told Breitbart News. “I am committed to ensuring accountability within the H-1B process, which is why I am personally certifying investigations. President Trump has made it clear that American workers come first, and we will fulfill that mission.”
For years, Breitbart News has chronicled the widespread abuse and fraud within the H-1B visa program, where companies regularly lay off American professionals after forcing them to train their foreign H-1B visa replacements, who arrive overwhelmingly from India, with little-to-no consequences from federal investigators.
India and China have dominated the H-1B visa program for decades.
In 2024, more than 7-in-10 H-1B visas approved by the federal government went to Indian nationals who are also predominantly male. Those Americans replaced by foreign H-1B visa workers are typically older, including many women, and enjoy seniority in their positions and good benefits packages.
Chavez-DeRemer said DOL has at least 175 ongoing investigations after announcing the fraud and abuse enforcement initiative “Project Firewall” in September.
When announcing the initiative, Chavez-DeRemer highlighted the administration’s “commitment to end practices that leave Americans in the dust” shortly after President Donald Trump signed a proclamation authorizing agencies to “reduce fraud and exclude foreign workers from the career-starting jobs needed by talented U.S. graduates.”
Trump’s proclamation also notably imposed a $100,000 one-time fee on H-1B visa petitions.
In the six weeks following the late September launch of Project Firewall, officials with the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) said they have found:
Foreign H-1B visa workers hired at far lower wages than their American counterparts
Cases where the job locations for hired foreign H-1B visa workers did not exist
H-1B employers failing to notify federal officials when the visa was terminated
Despite some foreign H-1B visa hires having advanced degrees, WHD investigators said companies were paying them at wage rates far below their qualifications, forcing Americans to also accept those lower rates to compete in the professional workforce.
In some of the investigations where the job location was fake, the foreign H-1B visa workers also did not know what the work described in their Labor Condition Application (LCA) was, even though they signed up to do it.
The open cases represent over $15 million in owed back wages to workers, with the WHD expecting this figure to grow as more cases of fraud and abuse are uncovered. Companies found abusing the H-1B visa program will have to pay those back wages as part of their settlements with the Labor Department.
While DOL officials could not release names of companies and individuals involved in H-1B visa fraud at this time, more information is expected when investigations are finalized.
Years of analysis of government data have shown that U.S. companies use the H-1B visa program as an outsourcing scheme that starts with laying off their American employees, importing their foreign replacements, and then, years later, offshoring the job altogether to, typically, India.
Just last year, leading H-1B visa researcher Ron Hira published a study for the Economic Policy Institute that reviewed wage data from HCL Technologies, India’s third-largest outsourcing firm, whose clients include Microsoft, Disney, Boeing, FedEx, Google, T-Mobile, and Keurig Dr. Pepper, among others.
The results of the study were shocking, but not surprising to longtime H-1B critics.
“H-1B workers both hired in India and in the U.S. are shown to be vastly underpaid compared with their U.S. citizen and permanent resident counterparts not hired with H-1B visas,” the research found. “… according to HCL’s own calculations, the firm systematically pays H-1B workers much less than its U.S. workers — as much as 47% — contravening HCL’s attestations in its visa applications where it promises to pay the actual wage if it is higher than the prevailing wage.”
The study found that HCL Tech saves at least $95 million a year by paying its H-1B visa workforce far less than their American counterparts.
Similar research published in the Journal of Business Ethics last year exposed that British multinational corporation Deloitte paid foreign H-1B visa workers about 10 percent less than Americans doing the same line of work.
