President Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, had a one-on-one interview this week with The Daily Signal, a media outlet founded by The Heritage Foundation, the influential conservative think tank.
Chavez-DeRemer said her agency is currently working on almost 200 investigations, including the efforts of “Project Firewall,” an initiative that specifically monitors companies that are potentially abusing the H-1B vias program.
As seen in the video below, Chavez-DeRemer asserts that before U.S. companies apply for the H-1B visa program, “you want to advertise to the American worker first, you want to make sure you can’t find an American worker first, and then apply for the H-1B program.”
Alarming to see @SecretaryLCD get basic H-1B facts wrong. She claims employers must first advertise jobs to Americans first—which is FALSE. There’s no labor market test required, just self-attestation. How can you reform a program to protect Americans if you don’t understand it? pic.twitter.com/XvDo8WIfra
— U.S. Tech Workers (@USTechWorkers) December 14, 2025
She added, “The goal is to make sure that we have a trained workforce. So if these companies are going to use the program, we want to make sure that they’re also training American workers, so we can offer it to them first.”
U.S. Tech Workers, a nonprofit group formed by the Institute for Sound Public Policy to pressure the federal government for visa program reform and ensure companies hire U.S. tech workers first before recruiting abroad, responded to the Secretary’s comments.
U.S. Tech Workers characterizes as literal Chavez-DeRemer’s description of her ideal situation — companies advertising to American workers first — and wrote to clarify the limits of the actual legal responsibilities of H-1B employers: “Alarming to see @SecretaryLCD get basic H-1B facts wrong. She claims employers must first advertise jobs to Americans first—which is FALSE. There’s no labor market test required, just self-attestation. How can you reform a program to protect Americans if you don’t understand it?”
U.S. Tech Workers added: “It also appears that Project Firewall is merely targeting low-hanging IT bodyshops that once published ‘hiring H-1B only’ on job ads, rather than going after the Big Tech behemoths engaged in mass layoffs while simultaneously sponsoring visas. No structural rule changes are being proposed, such as closing the outsourcing loophole or raising the prevailing wage requirements. Disappointing @USDOL.”
It also appears that Project Firewall is merely targeting low-hanging IT bodyshops that once published “hiring H-1B only” on job ads, rather than going after the Big Tech behemoths engaged in mass layoffs while simultaneously sponsoring visas. No structural rule changes are being… pic.twitter.com/YE4YTrY5oL
— U.S. Tech Workers (@USTechWorkers) December 14, 2025
[Note: The U.S. Tech Workers is not without influence or connections. The founder of the group, Kevin Lynn, met with President Trump at the White House in August 2020, when the President signed an executive order to, according to Trump, “finalize H1-B regulations so that no American worker is replaced ever again. H1-Bs should be used for top, highly paid talent to create American jobs, not as inexpensive labor program to destroy American jobs.”]
On Wednesday, U.S. Tech Workers also voiced opposition to President Trump’s “bogus ‘Gold Card’ vanity project by @howardlutnick,” which the organization said “is likely to backfire on the administration,” and called it “a complete farce.”
This completely bogus “Gold Card” vanity project by @howardlutnick is likely to backfire on the administration.
Here’s why:
Green Cards (immigrant visas) are created exclusively by Congress under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). A President cannot create a new visa… https://t.co/RB5bwDIYMN
— U.S. Tech Workers (@USTechWorkers) December 10, 2025
Note: In addition to Lynn, the four-person executive team of The Institute of Sound Public Policy, which is based in Washington, D.C., includes Theodore Wold, the Solicitor General of Idaho, who served as the Acting-Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy under President Trump. Wold also served as Deputy Chief Counsel to U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on the Senate Judiciary Committee.