AG Labrador Urges Department of Labor to End H-1B Abuse, Protect American Workers

BOISE, ID — Attorney General Raúl Labrador joined a 13-state coalition submitting formal comments to the U.S. Department of Labor in support of proposed rulemaking that would raise the minimum wages employers must pay foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. The comments argue that higher wage requirements are the single most effective administrative step available to stop corporations from using the program to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor.

The H-1B program was designed to fill genuine gaps in the American workforce with highly skilled foreign workers in specialty occupations. Instead, major corporations have exploited it as a cost-cutting tool. Companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Disney, and Meta have conducted mass layoffs while simultaneously filing thousands of new H-1B petitions. In one documented case, Southern California Edison replaced hundreds of American IT workers with H-1B hires at 40 percent lower cost and required the fired employees to train their own replacements. The Department of Labor’s proposed rule would raise required wage floors, directly reducing the financial incentive for that kind of abuse.

The coalition also flags a national security dimension: roughly one in eight H-1B visas issued in recent years went to Chinese nationals, giving workers from a designated foreign adversary significant access to the technology companies developing America’s most sensitive products.

“The H-1B visa program was originally intended to bring in foreign workers only when Americans aren’t available. Instead, corporations have exploited it to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor,” said Attorney General Labrador. “I’m urging the Department of Labor to raise the wage floors that make this abuse profitable. When the financial incentive disappears, so does the scheme.”

The coalition additionally argues the current wage methodology is likely unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, having been set through informal guidance rather than notice-and-comment rulemaking and without any reasoned explanation for why the methodology produces figures consistent with what the statute requires.

Read the comment letter here.