Federal labor officials are escalating a sweeping crackdown on alleged H-1B visa fraud as part of a new enforcement push they say is designed to put American workers first.
The U.S. Department of Labor posted on X:
PROJECT FIREWALL IS GAINING MOMENTUM 🔥
We’re proactively seeking out fraud in the H-1B program and expanding our enforcement coordination with other agencies.
It’s all part of our mission to put AMERICANS FIRST! pic.twitter.com/uygvvZQc7V
— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) December 2, 2025
The announcement coincided with new details about “Project Firewall,” an initiative that reportedly is driving roughly 200 active investigations into alleged violations of the specialty-occupation visa program, which allows employers to hire certain foreign workers with at least a bachelor’s degree, per Bloomberg Law. The program is widely used in the U.S. tech sector.
Under President Donald Trump, the Labor Department has begun using an authority that lawyers reportedly said had gone largely untouched for years: secretary-certified investigations that can proceed without a formal worker complaint, so long as officials claim there is “reasonable cause” to believe an employer may be breaking the law.
An agency spokesperson told Bloomberg Law that Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer had personally approved at least one such probe.
Attorneys cited in the same report said investigators are likely to zero in on so-called H-1B-dependent companies, those whose workforces include large proportions of visa holders, and third-party contractors that place those workers on short-term projects.
Probes typically examine whether companies are paying promised wages and whether job duties match the terms laid out in the public access files employers must maintain.
The Labor Department’s stepped-up inspections come as other federal agencies have also increased scrutiny of the program.
Immigration lawyers told Bloomberg Law that fraud-detection personnel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services have ramped up unannounced worksite visits, while the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has issued warnings about what it described as possible national-origin discrimination against American workers.
The Dallas Express previously reported that federal immigration authorities fined three Dallas-area employers a combined $59,354 earlier this year for other violations tied to federal worksite enforcement laws.
Separately, watchdog groups have questioned federal oversight of academic credentials used within the visa system. The Center for Immigration Studies reported in February that USCIS responded to a Freedom of Information Act request by stating that it “does not track data on ‘H-1B awardees who obtained degrees from Manav Bharti University,’” a school in India that the organization said has been implicated in large-scale fake-degree sales.
The group pointed to a 2008 compliance audit that found over 13% of approved H-1B visas were fraudulent, adding that the absence of updated tracking data shows why “fraud pervades the H-1B system.”
The new enforcement surge comes amid a period of intensifying public debate over the program’s future. Nearly 17,000 people submitted comments on a separate Department of Homeland Security proposal to reshape the H-1B selection process by giving priority to higher-wage applicants.
A review of those comments found that hundreds were negative or called for further reform, with voices from across the political spectrum arguing that the current system disadvantages American workers and enables legal underpayment of foreign labor, according to The Dallas Express.
Some commenters demanded that the program be abolished. Others urged far-higher mandatory wages, and still others argued that industries such as higher education and rural health care remain reliant on specialized foreign hires for critical roles.
The enforcement blitz also arrives just days after Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois reintroduced legislation to double the annual H-1B cap from 65,000 to 130,000—a move that drew renewed attention to the political divide surrounding guest-worker visas.
That proposal surfaced after the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on most new H-1B visas, a change that the Indian American Impact organization said in a statement was “a direct attack on the very workers and communities who fuel America’s economy and innovation… This executive order is not about protecting American jobs; it is about weaponizing immigration policy to advance a xenophobic agenda,” as previously reported by DX.
Administration officials have said Project Firewall will withstand legal challenges, though attorneys noted that prior court rulings have limited the Labor Department’s powers in some circumstances. Legal scholars said the department is likely structuring its new reviews to avoid the kind of overreach judges have rejected in the past.
