White House OKs Cascade of White-Collar Migration Regulations

Federal agencies have posted draft regulations that would sharply curb the many visa programs used to import foreign, cheap, mixed-skill workers for the white-collar jobs sought by skilled American professionals.

“The sky is falling in the immigration space,” said Nicolette Glazer, an immigration lawyer who favors the visa programs.

“That’s a positive,” responded Kevin Lynn, the founder of U.S. Tech Workers, which is a group that campaigns against the visa worker programs. 

The rush of draft pro-American rules will trigger a pre-election, closed-door lobbying campaign in the White House. Investors and billionaires with stakes in multiple industries will personally lobby President Donald Trump to delay the draft rules so they can be discarded after the midterm elections.

But Trump showed some willingness to curb the H-1B program in September 2025, although that reform was modest and has provided no help to the voters that Trump needs. Vice President JD Vance and Steve Miller will likely back the new rules, which may help shift college graduate voters from the pro-migration Democratic Party to populist GOP candidates.

Trump’s staffers “are doing probably what they feel they can get away with, but not totally upsetting the donor base ….[so] we’re seeing some good rulemaking,” he said, adding that the draft rules support Trump’s desire to rebuild U.S. manufacturing, raise productivity, and fuel high-tech innovation.

A growing number of American politicians — and even some investors — are speaking against the H-1B white-collar visa program as polls show rising public awareness and opposition. The establishment media has barely covered the impact of the visa programs. 

But the result is visible in the jobs numbers. For example, the unemployment and underemployment rate for new US. college grads is roughly 40 percent, according to the August 6 report by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The combined unemployment and underemployment rate for computer science graduates is 26 percent, the report said. 

The 60-Day Rule

Draft rules announced by the Department of Homeland Security would increase corporate fees for extending visas, limit F-1 student visas and J-1 white-collar visas to four years, and likely shorten a 60-day “grace period” extension that allows fired foreign workers to take other jobs instead of going home.

Ending the 60-day period “Would be a TERRIBLE move for employees, employers, research institutions and universities, local economies, people’s families, their friends and basically everyone,” responded Todd Schulte, the former Democratic staffer who now runs the leading lobby group for white-collar visas, FWD.us. He added: “unless your goal is radically slash the US ability to attract and retain specialized workers & purge people here.”

The founders and funders of Schulte’s FWD.us group profit from the inflow of more migrant consumers, renters, and workers. Many of those billionaires will personally push President Donald Trump to delay the regulations — and then discard them after the midterm elections.

The grace period was granted in 2017 by officials in the Obama administration to help Indian visa workers once they lost the jobs that they were imported to fill. Since then, many Indian workers have been able to jump from job to job, often beating American professionals because of the kickback networks within ethnic groups that exclude American professionals. The rule covers workers imported via the uncapped E-2, E-3, H-1B, H-1B1, L-1, O-1, and TN visa programs. 

Use of H-1B Workers

Another pending regulation by the Department of Homeland Security would change how companies, universities, and hospitals can import and use the subordinate, subsidized, and cheap H-1B workers:

by revising eligibility for cap exemption, providing greater scrutiny for employers that have violated program requirements, and increasing oversight over third party placements [by staffing companies], among other provisions. These changes are intended to improve the integrity of the H-1B nonimmigrant program and better protect U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions.

The kickback-fuelled H-1B program keeps roughly 1 million foreign workers in the U.S., including many in subcontractor sweatshops, universities, healthcare centers, and company-affiliated research centers.

Glazer described her concerns about the pending regulation:

We do not know the scope or contents but … My guess is that they try to do a back door narrowing of [uncapped] eligiblity for universities, nonprofit research organizations, governmental research organizations, and affiliated/related entities to qualify for cap exemption by changing the definitions of “affiliated” … Increasing oversight over third-party [subcontractor] placements. This is the most interesting aspect. Will see how far they are willing to go after staffing/consulting firms and off-site placements.

“My biggest concern is that they are going after the 240-day rule,” she said. The rule allows an eight-month automatic extension of work permit for visa workers.

The DHS draft regulation is due for release by the end of August — but will likely face furious pushback by the business sector, including FWD.us’ investors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Changing the PERM Process

Another draft rule has been issued by the Department of Labor and may have a huge impact by forcing companies to invite Americans to compete for jobs that are also used to help H-1B migrants win green cards. If the H-1B workers cannot get green cards, they are supposed to go home after six years, so freeing up a job for an American. 

Stuart Anderson, a pro-migration advocate, spotlighted the draft rule in an August 10 article for Forbes.com: 

The regulations governing the PERM process have not been comprehensively modified since 2004 … the Department will seek to modernize the standards and procedures by which the Department receives and reviews employers’ applications for permanent labor certification by improving the minimum standards for recruiting qualified U.S. workers, strengthening safeguards for U.S. Workers impacted by layoffs, and enhancing employer compliance with program requirements related to non-discriminatory recruitment and hiring practices, and record retention requirements. The rulemaking will result in a labor certification process that better reflects current labor market dynamics and ensures employers experiencing true shortages of high-skilled labor are permitted access to the permanent employment-based immigration process. 

The announcement is vague, so Anderson and the pro-migration lawyers are painting it as an unreasonable burden on business. 

The draft PERM regulation will be strongly opposed by India’s government. The H-1B program has supercharged Indian migration into the United States- and created a massive outflow of remittances and investment into India. 

The Midterm Elections

But the growing evidence of public anger about the displacement, fraud, crime, and economic harm enabled by the program has prompted the Trump administration to draft the curbs before the November election.  

“This is not just fraud: This is a criminal enterprise that stretches far beyond the borders of America,” Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito told Breitbart News during an interview in his D.C. office. He explained:

Without revealing too much of an investigation, I think that when complete, one of the things that will probably make the American people most angry… and will probably lead to the biggest change from lawmakers — they will probably bring oversight to this — [is] the fact that many of the individuals that you’re talking about that are selling these jobs, getting kickbacks. We will clearly outline and define their relationships with — whether it’s gangs [or] whether it is transnational criminal organizations.

Ordinary Americans can impact the White House debate, said Lynn:

First thing they have to do is go to our website and sign our STEM OPT petition … Get their friends and family to sign it, colleagues to sign it, … get one going in that state, because nothing tells Congress the sentiments of their constituents than seeing petitions and people actually showing up in their [district office] doors.