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Trump medication unveils 'Project Firewall' to ace down connected H-1B visa abuse
The US Department of Labor (DOL) has launched ‘Project Firewall’, a sweeping enforcement inaugural aimed astatine curbing misuse of the H-1B visa programme and protecting American jobs, peculiarly successful the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.
The nonsubjective is to guarantee employers prioritize qualified Americans erstwhile hiring workers and to clasp violators accountable. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the measurement would guarantee “highly skilled jobs spell to Americans first.” For the archetypal clip successful history, the Secretary of Labor volition personally certify investigations into suspected H-1B violations, which officials described arsenic a “historic action.”
Employers recovered blameworthy could look penalties ranging from repayment of backmost wages to affected American workers, fines, and adjacent debarment from aboriginal usage of the programme for a specified period.
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The DOL said it volition coordinate with agencies including the Justice Department, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and US Citizenship and Immigration Services successful enforcing the initiative. Project Firewall was launched alongside a caller statesmanlike proclamation by Donald Trump, which alleged that employers were exploiting the H-1B strategy to regenerate American workers with cheaper overseas labour.
“The large-scale replacement of American workers done systemic maltreatment of the H-1B programme has undermined some our economical and nationalist security,” Trump declared. According to the proclamation, overseas STEM workers successful the U.S. doubled from 1.2 cardinal successful 2000 to astir 2.5 cardinal successful 2019, portion wide STEM employment grew lone 44.5 percent. IT outsourcing firms were singled retired for “significantly harming American workers,” with immoderate reportedly laying disconnected thousands of US employees portion securing support for ample numbers of H-1B hires. Critics, however, caution that the caller inaugural could person unintended consequences. Speaking to
TOI
, Rajiv S. Khanna, managing lawyer astatine Immigration.com, said that portion the extremity of protecting American workers is “laudable,” the inaugural risks overreach. He noted that employers hiring H-1B endowment indispensable meticulously comply with prevailing wage laws, labour information applications, and strict recruitment standards.
“The process is simply a minefield of procedural requirements wherever a azygous misstep tin pb to method violations,” Khanna said. “By granting the Secretary of Labor idiosyncratic authorization to initiate investigations, the process becomes susceptible to governmental motivations. The superior information lies successful the subjective mentation of ‘fraud and abuse.’ Minor, unintentional administrative errors … could beryllium weaponized and magnified into grounds for terrible penalties.
This disproportionately harms tiny and mid-sized companies that deficiency the extended ineligible resources of firm giants, yet are captious engines of innovation and occupation growth,” helium added. Immigration attorneys reason that treating insignificant compliance failures with the severity of large infractions volition make fear, embroil US companies successful litigation, and dent economical growth. The National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), successful aggregate studies, has highlighted that employers enarthrosis important obligations erstwhile sponsoring H-1B workers.
They indispensable wage the higher of either the prevailing wage for the relation oregon the existent wage paid to different employees with akin acquisition and qualifications. Regulations besides necessitate employers to notify US unit astir the wages paid to H-1B holders. Countering the cognition that foreign-born scientists and engineers correspond “cheap labour,” NFAP pointed to USCIS information showing that H-1B professionals are well-compensated.
In 2023, the mean yearly wage for H-1B workers successful computer-related occupations was $132,000, with a median of $122,000. Trump’s proclamation which calls for a $100,000 introduction interest for each H-1B petition filed aft Sept. 21 besides outlines further measures. He has directed the DOL to revise and rise prevailing wage levels to “upskill” the program, ensuring it is utilized lone to prosecute the “best of the best” overseas workers. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing a regularisation that would prioritize higher wages successful the H-1B enactment process.
