President Donald Trump has ordered federal agencies to consider whether employers recently laid off, or plan to lay off, similarly situated U.S. workers when reviewing H-1B visa applications.
The executive order directs the departments of State, Labor and Homeland Security to consult with the departments of Commerce and Education and the Small Business Administration. The agencies may share wage, employment, academic and industry information while reviewing applications for specialty-occupation workers.
The order says the H-1B program has been abused by some employers, placement companies and outsourcing firms to replace U.S. workers with lower-paid foreign labor. Those are the administration’s findings and rationale for the policy; the order does not provide an independent analysis of the labor-market claims it cites.
Under the order, the Labor Department must begin reviewing data from previously filed labor condition applications within 30 days to determine whether enforcement action against sponsoring employers is warranted.
Administration renews $100,000 fee requirement
The White House also announced that Trump signed a proclamation renewing a $100,000 fee for certain H-1B applications. The fee was first imposed in September 2025, according to an administration fact sheet.
The fact sheet said registrations from the largest information-technology outsourcing firms declined 92% after the earlier proclamation and that consular processing requests fell nearly 97%. The White House also said a wage-weighted registration system finalized in December 2025 replaced the randomized H-1B lottery for fiscal 2027. Those statistics and characterizations were provided by the administration.
The order does not end the H-1B program or establish an across-the-board prohibition on employers that have conducted layoffs. Instead, it instructs agencies to consider recent or planned layoffs as part of their review and gives several cabinet officials authority to issue rules, policies and guidance needed to implement the directive.
The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers temporarily for jobs requiring specialized knowledge and specific qualifications. Changes to application review, fees and selection rules can affect technology companies, universities, health care employers and other organizations that rely on the program.
The order says implementation must comply with existing law and depends on available appropriations. It does not set a deadline for agencies to issue broader implementing rules beyond the Labor Department’s 30-day review requirement.
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