By Rita Cook
Correspondent
Texas Metro News
WASHINGTON DC – Trump turned up the heat last week when he signed an executive order on September 18 called “Enhancing program integrity and interagency coordination in the administration of the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program.”
The EO directs the State Department, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Labor to increase oversight and scrutiny on H-1B visa applications from companies that have recently laid off or plan to lay off similarly situated U.S. workers.
Recent federal data and immigration reports highlight major tech corporations such as Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet (Google) as being especially affected by shifting H-1B visa scrutiny and compliance rules. Other companies like Nvidia are bucking the trend by increasing visa applications due to their premium salary offerings.
The EO is making it much harder for tech and corporate companies to lay off American workers and immediately replace them with cheaper foreign workers on H-1B visas.
Currently, companies can legally lay off local employees and hire the H-1B visa holders to fill the same roles, often for less money. The EO is meant to change that and assure that multiple government agencies are cross-referencing corporate layoff data with visa applications to spot and block this practice.
Before the EO earlier this month if a tech company wanted to cut costs, it would, for example, lay off 100 American software engineers earning $120,000. The next month, the company would apply for 100 H-1B visas to bring in software engineers from overseas, paying them the minimum legal requirement of $80,000.
Usually, the Department of Labor would approve the visas because they didn’t actively cross-check the tech company’s lay-off history during the application process.
The EO means the tech company will be cross referenced by the Department of Labor and Homeland Security to determine if recent layoffs of “similarly situated” (meaning they do the same job) American workers were involved.
Indeed, shockwaves are being felt due to the EO among major tech corporations since major tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Meta have over the years collectively cut thousands of infrastructure jobs to move heavy investments toward artificial intelligence (AI).
Under the new EO if a company attempts to sponsor H-1B visas for specialized AI engineering roles while laying off workers in other IT departments that company will face “Requests for Evidence” and potential application denials.
The EO is said to be a crisis for startups and smaller tech businesses who do not have the finances to undergo a long federal audit of their workforce planning.
Outsourcing firms are also feeling the heat since the shift from a randomized lottery to a wage-based selection process has already devastated traditional IT staffing firms.
As to how many workers and companies are being affected, the larger Tech company have sizable investments at stake in artificial intelligence and often use foreign-born talent at lower wages.
In fact, according to an analysis of government data conducted by Stuart Anderson, the Executive Director of the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Google had the most approved new H-1B petitions in FY 2025, and Apple was number 6. Ultimately, this executive order signals a major shift for Silicon Valley, transforming the H-1B visa from a convenient corporate cost-cutting tool into a heavily scrutinized domestic protection program.
Rita Cook is a world traveler and writer/editor who specializes in writing on travel, auto, crime and politics. A correspondent for Texas Metro News, she has published 11 books and has also produced low-budget films.
