Vance-Backed DOL OIG Probe Targets H-1B Visa Fraud, Sidesteps Employer Accountability

Vice President JD Vance and Labor Inspector General Anthony P. D'Esposito announced a sweeping investigation into H-1B and PERM visa fraud, issuing dozens of subpoenas and specifically naming Indian IT firm Cognizant. Framed as protecting 'American jobs,' the probe targets alleged misuse of temporary work visas, including labor trafficking and fraudulent filings. This is the administration's most aggressive visa fraud enforcement action to date. However, the spotlight on visa fraud conveniently ignores the bipartisan reality: U.S. employers have for decades exploited the H-1B system to suppress wages, bypass domestic recruitment, and create a captive workforce. Congress has consistently refused to close loopholes that allow companies to pay visa holders below market rates, tie them to a single sponsor, and stack the deck against U.S. workers through the program's lottery and prevailing wage rules. By focusing enforcement on fraud by a few firms and individual workers, the administration sidesteps the systemic employer-driven abuse that the law enables. The investigation's immediate targets—visa holders and middlemen—will likely face the harshest consequences: deportation, blacklisting, and career destruction. Meanwhile, the corporations that profit from the wage arbitrage will face at most fines or consent decrees, rarely criminal charges for executives. To genuinely protect 'American jobs' and raise labor standards, enforcement must be paired with structural reforms: eliminating the H-1B lottery, raising prevailing wages to truly competitive levels, ending employer-sponsored visa controls, and strengthening union protections. Without those steps, this probe risks becoming a punitive spectacle that leaves the system's underlying injustice intact.