Vice President JD Vance launched a broad agency investigation of the expanding H-1B visa program on Tuesday, confronting a scheme that has pushed millions of American graduates out of jobs, homes, and careers since the 1990s.
“I’m proud to announce that the federal Department of Labor has started dozens of subpoenas and investigations into foreign fraudsters who are trying to take advantage of the H-1B visa program,” Vance told an audience in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He added:
Here’s a simple principle, ladies and gentlemen: American jobs ought to go to American workers and not foreign fraudsters, and the Department of Labor is fighting back against it.
Vance and the Department of Labor portrayed their view of the visa program as an anti-abuse measure, not a criticism of the H-1B program that keeps at least 800,000 non-immigrant foreign contract workers in jobs that would otherwise be held by American graduates.
“The door is opening a little bit, and now we have to force it open further with massive action,” responded Kevin Lynn, founder of U.S. Tech Workers, a lobby group for the many American professionals who are being sidelined by the federal government’s H-1B, J-1, F-and 1/OPT, and L-1 visa program for U.S. employers. He added:
The best way to demonstrate that is to set up appointments with your Congressmen and Senators while they’re back in their districts over over the August break … No congressman should come back from August, and either he or his staff not have had tech workers, you know, in their offices.
Vance said:
I want to talk about another fraud crackdown, and this is almost hard to believe. We have a program called the H-1B visa program … Why does this program exist? This is a visa program that was set up to ensure that if you are a brilliant technology person or a brilliant scientist or a brilliant doctor, you could come to the United States and get access to this visa program. But know what’s happening way too much is that big corporations and fraudsters overseas are using this program to undercut the wages of American workers … We’re saying no more.
If you are trying to take advantage of that visa program, you are not allowed in to the United States of America. Today, I’m proud to announce that the federal Department of Labor has started dozens of subpoenas and investigations into foreign fraudsters who are trying to take advantage of the H 1b visa program.
Vance’s statement recognized the growing anger about the visa programs among white-collar workers, and he opened the door for more public criticism — and for the citizen pressure that would help GOP or even Democratic politicians fend off their business donors.
Currently, most college grads vote Democratic. But a large share may switch their votes if President Donald Trump, Vance and their deputies can open up many white-collar jobs to Americans.
In June, one of his West Coast donors told a skittish reporter at the establishment Axios.com site that the H-1B program needs fixes. “I think that there’s been a lot of abuse in some of these foundational programs,” said Silicon Valley investor Chamath Palihapitiya. He added:
If you’re going to set them on a right course, we have to be honest about the abuses … You need to stop and to tourniquet the bleeding, so that you can reestablish trust with the American population at large.
Breitbart News has posted many articles about how Indian managers and C-Suite executives exploit the many visa programs to quietly sell jobs held by American professionals to foreigners and relatives who are desperate to live in the United States.
The executives also embezzle company wealth via featherbedding, salary kickbacks, and self-dealing contracts hidden within the complex rules for the mixed-skill H-1B, H4EAD, L-1, J-1, OPT, and B1/B2 visa programs.
But the outsourcing programs are increasingly at risk because many angry Americans — and some of their GOP politicians — increasingly recognize the elite exploitation and ethnic discrimination within the Fortune 500 companies and subcontractors that employ the vast majority of the 1.5 million mixed-skill visa workers and their spouses. The arbitrage is also growing in U.S. universities and non-profits.
Still, the programs are strongly backed by the investor class and by many business lobbies eager to pump up stock values. The programs are also fiercely defended by the Indian government, which uses trade deals and Indian-born CEOs to protect the U.S. visa programs that serve as the foundation of its migration-focused economic strategy.
The many huge white-collar outsourcing programs — with at least 1.5 million jobs — get almost zero skepticism from white-collar reporters in the establishment media. The silence is likely because the journalists do not have the workplace authority to describe the business-backed economic policy that has pushed millions of their peers out of their careers and the middle class.
The Department of Justice has already launched multiple small-scale investigations of discrimination and cheating in the visa program. But the targets are mostly small-scale, Indian-run companies that import H-1B workers to lease them to the multiple Indian-run staffing companies that fill Fortune 500 jobs.
The Department of Labor described the new investigation:
The U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Inspector General (OIG), today launched a major investigation and is intensifying enforcement efforts to combat fraud and human trafficking in the H-1B and Program Electronica Review Management (PERM) systems. Working alongside federal law enforcement partners and President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, the OIG has uncovered widespread schemes in which employers and labor brokers submitted fraudulent applications, exploited foreign workers through coercive wage-kickback arrangements, and undercut American workers by flooding the market with below-wage labor …
…
“My team, in conjunction with President Trump and Vice President Vance’s Fraud Task Force, has worked relentlessly to uncover fraud, safeguard taxpayer dollars, and hold bad actors accountable. For far too long, fraudsters believed they could game the U.S. employment-based visa system and get away with it. They were wrong,” said Anthony P. D’Espsoito, Inspector General, U.S. Department of Labor. “This isn’t just paperwork fraud—it’s the exploitation of vulnerable workers, forced labor, the displacement of American workers, and abusive human trafficking. As the Inspector General, my top priorities are exposing fraud, protecting American workers, and putting criminals in cuffs.”
The department invited Americans to share their knowledge of the program.
To safeguard workers and strengthen H-1B and PERM program integrity, the OIG is launching a nationwide awareness initiative encouraging:
U.S. workers who believe they have been displaced or harmed by potential H-1B or PERM fraud or related industry practices, and
Foreign workers who believe they have experienced exploitation, coercion, benching, or fraudulent recruitment practices, and
Any workers who believe they were compelled against their will to provide labor or services through force, fraud, or coercion, to report concerns confidentially or directly.
“This is encouraging, but it falls short of everything they can and should be doing,” said Lynn.
Prior promises of investigations have generated only small gains, he said, adding:
Is this ultimately going to be campaign rhetoric [for the 2028 midterm elections] to give the illusion that the administration is doing something about these employment visa programs? … If in 60 days, I see [Fortune 500] companies getting barred from using the H-1B visa, if I see heavy fine being levied, or substantive regulatory changes, I’ll back the administration.
For now, he said, “let’s give them support for doing this, but also understand there’s much more that we have to be doing, and if we’re not getting it from the administration, we need to force it.”
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