Under the Donald Trump administration, the US Department of Labor launched its H-1B enforcement initiative, Project Firewall, to prioritise allocating job opportunities for highly skilled American workers. The September 19 directive aligned with the American president signing the proclamation “Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers,” requiring an $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications submitted after September 21.

The US government officials have gone over and beyond to highlight hefty accusations of visa “fraud,” “scam,” or “abuse,” claiming that companies backing the ‘specialty occupations’ nonimmigrant classification and its recipients has largely relied on “cheap” foreign workers to topple their American counterparts. As a result, the Department of Labor has continued to double down on visa crackdown, while urging companies to “hire American.”

US Labor Department issues reminder to ‘hire American’

Merely hours ago, the US government department reiterated the sentiment in yet another official social media warning addressed to companies relying on the H-1B visa. “Under our Project Firewall plan, we’re eliminating fraud and abuse in the H-1B program and ensuring AMERICANS are prioritised in the hiring process,” the new tweet stated.

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The post also highlighted a long-emphasised statement by the DOL: “By rooting out fraud and abuse, the Department of Labor and our federal partners will ensure that highly skilled jobs go to Americans first.” In an additional scathing attack on Democrats, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer said that while their political rivals were responsible for the continued government shutdown, the US DOL was “working around the clock to ensure companies Hire American” as part of what she called was their “mission to put American Workers First!”

In a previous news release, the Department of Labor hailed the American worker as the country’s “most valuable resource.” And so, Project Firewall allows the DOL to conduct investigations of employers to ensure they comply with the H-1B program overhaul. Unearthed violations on their part can lead to “collection of back wages owed to affected workers, the assessment of civil money penalties, and/or debarment from future use of the H-1B program for a prescribed period of time,” as per the US govt.

To curb what it calls “discrimination against American workers,” the DOL is also likely to share information with government agencies in its efforts to uphold the new set of stricter rules and laws. American lawmakers have particularly found fault in the now-highly-contested visa category over concerns that legally green-lit hundreds of thousands of H-1B visa holders have become a prime cause for American workers struggling to find a good opportunity it the contemporary job market.

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H-1B overhaul – Major visa sponsor switches tune amid crackdown

The September 19 proclamation was ultimately followed up by a September 23 announcement indicating that the US Citizenship and Immigration Services had proposed a rule, per which H-1B applications could be weighted bases on the wage level, thereby favouring higher-paid applicants.

As employers brace for the new revelations, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of the biggest H-1B visa sponsors in the US, said it would no longer be relying on the visa process for hiring. CEO K Krithivasan recently declared that the tech giant would reduced the number of H-1B visa-holding employees in American offices, while focussing on hiring “more locally” and cutting down its “dependency on visa-based talent,” as per the Times of India.