[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 183 (Wednesday, September 24, 2025)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 46027-46030]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-18601]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 90 , No. 183 / Wednesday, September 24, 2025
/ Presidential Documents
[[Page 46027]]
Proclamation 10973 of September 19, 2025
Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant
Workers
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The H-1B nonimmigrant visa program was created to bring
temporary workers into the United States to perform
additive, high-skilled functions, but it has been
deliberately exploited to replace, rather than
supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-
skilled labor. The large-scale replacement of American
workers through systemic abuse of the program has
undermined both our economic and national security.
Some employers, using practices now widely adopted by
entire sectors, have abused the H-1B statute and its
regulations to artificially suppress wages, resulting
in a disadvantageous labor market for American
citizens, while at the same time making it more
difficult to attract and retain the highest skilled
subset of temporary workers, with the largest impact
seen in critical science, technology, engineering, and
math (STEM) fields.
The number of foreign STEM workers in the United States
has more than doubled between 2000 and 2019, increasing
from 1.2 million to almost 2.5 million, while overall
STEM employment has only increased 44.5 percent during
that time. Among computer and math occupations, the
foreign share of the workforce grew from 17.7 percent
in 2000 to 26.1 percent in 2019. And the key
facilitator for this influx of foreign STEM labor has
been the abuse of the H-1B visa.
Information technology (IT) firms in particular have
prominently manipulated the H-1B system, significantly
harming American workers in computer-related fields.
The share of IT workers in the H-1B program grew from
32 percent in Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 to an average of
over 65 percent in the last 5 fiscal years. In
addition, some of the most prolific H-1B employers are
now consistently IT outsourcing companies. Using these
H-1B-reliant IT outsourcing companies provides
significant savings for employers: one study of tech
workers showed a 36 percent discount for H-1B ``entry-
level'' positions as compared to full-time, traditional
workers. To take advantage of artificially low labor
costs incentivized by the program, companies close
their IT divisions, fire their American staff, and
outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers.
Further, the abuse of the H-1B visa program has made it
even more challenging for college graduates trying to
find IT jobs, allowing employers to hire foreign
workers at a significant discount to American workers.
These effects of abuse of H-1B visas have coincided
with increasing challenges in the labor market in which
H-1B workers serve. According to a study from the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, among college
graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer
engineering majors are facing some of the highest
unemployment rates in the country at 6.1 percent and
7.5 percent, respectively--more than double the
unemployment rates of recent biology and art history
graduates. Recent data reveals that unemployment rates
among workers in computer occupations jumped from an
average of 1.98 percent in 2019 to 3.02 percent in
2025.
Reports also indicate that many American tech companies
have laid off their qualified and highly skilled
American workers and simultaneously hired thousands of
H-1B workers. One software company was approved
[[Page 46028]]
for over 5,000 H-1B workers in FY 2025; around the same
time, it announced a series of layoffs totaling more
than 15,000 employees. Another IT firm was approved for
nearly 1,700 H-1B workers in FY 2025; it announced it
was laying off 2,400 American workers in Oregon in
July. A third company has reduced its workforce by
approximately 27,000 American workers since 2022, while
being approved for over 25,000 H-1B workers since FY
2022. A fourth company reportedly eliminated 1,000 jobs
in February; it was approved for over 1,100 H-1B
workers for FY 2025.
American IT workers have reported they were forced to
train the foreign workers who were taking their jobs
and to sign nondisclosure agreements about this
indignity as a condition of receiving any form of
severance. This suggests H-1B visas are not being used
to fill occupational shortages or obtain highly skilled
workers who are unavailable in the United States.
The high numbers of relatively low-wage workers in the
H-1B program undercut the integrity of the program and
are detrimental to American workers' wages and labor
opportunities, especially at the entry level, in
industries where such low-paid H-1B workers are
concentrated. These abuses also prevent American
employers in other industries from utilizing the H-1B
program in the manner in which it was intended: to fill
jobs for which highly skilled and educated American
workers are unavailable.
The abuse of the H-1B program is also a national
security threat. Domestic law enforcement agencies have
identified and investigated H-1B-reliant outsourcing
companies for engaging in visa fraud, conspiracy to
launder money, conspiracy under the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and other
illicit activities to encourage foreign workers to come
to the United States.
Further, abuses of the H-1B program present a national
security threat by discouraging Americans from pursuing
careers in science and technology, risking American
leadership in these fields. A 2017 study showed that
wages for American computer scientists would have been
2.6 percent to 5.1 percent higher and employment in
computer science for American workers would have been
6.1 percent to 10.8 percent higher in 2001 absent the
importation of foreign workers into the computer
science field.
It is therefore necessary to impose higher costs on
companies seeking to use the H-1B program in order to
address the abuse of that program while still
permitting companies to hire the best of the best
temporary foreign workers.
The severe harms that the large-scale abuse of this
program has inflicted on our economic and national
security demands an immediate response. I therefore
find that the unrestricted entry into the United States
of certain foreign workers who are described in section
1 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the
interests of the United States because such entry would
harm American workers, including by undercutting their
wages.
Accordingly, by the authority vested in me as President
by the Constitution and the laws of the United States
of America, it is hereby ordered:
Section 1. Restriction on Entry. (a) Pursuant to
sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a),
the entry into the United States of aliens as
nonimmigrants to perform services in a specialty
occupation under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the
INA, 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b), is restricted,
except for those aliens whose petitions are accompanied
or supplemented by a payment of $100,000--subject to
the exceptions set forth in subsection (c) of this
section. This restriction shall expire, absent
extension, 12 months after the effective date of this
proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern
daylight time on September 21, 2025.
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall
restrict decisions on petitions not accompanied by a
$100,000 payment for H-1B specialty occupation workers
under section 101(a)(15)(H)(i)(b) of the INA, who are
currently outside the United States, for 12 months
following the effective date of this
[[Page 46029]]
proclamation as set forth in subsection (a) of this
section. The Secretary of State shall also issue
guidance, as necessary and to the extent permitted by
law, to prevent misuse of B visas by alien
beneficiaries of approved H-1B petitions that have an
employment start date beginning prior to October 1,
2026.
(c) The restriction imposed pursuant to subsections
(a) and (b) of this section shall not apply to any
individual alien, all aliens working for a company, or
all aliens working in an industry, if the Secretary of
Homeland Security determines, in the Secretary's
discretion, that the hiring of such aliens to be
employed as H-1B specialty occupation workers is in the
national interest and does not pose a threat to the
security or welfare of the United States.
Sec. 2. Compliance. (a) Employers shall, prior to
filing an H-1B petition on behalf of an alien outside
the United States, obtain and retain documentation
showing that the payment described in section 1 of this
proclamation has been made.
(b) The Secretary of State shall verify receipt of
payment of the amount described in section 1 of this
proclamation during the H-1B visa petition process and
shall approve only those visa petitions for which the
filing employer has made the payment described in
section 1 of this proclamation.
(c) The Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of State shall coordinate to take all
necessary and appropriate action to implement this
proclamation and to deny entry to the United States to
any H-1B nonimmigrant for whom the prospective employer
has not made the payment described in section 1 of this
proclamation.
Sec. 3. Scope and Implementation of Restriction on
Entry. (a) The restriction on entry pursuant to section
1 of this proclamation shall apply only to aliens who
enter or attempt to enter the United States after the
effective date of this proclamation as set forth in
section 1(a) of this proclamation.
(b) No later than 30 days following the completion
of the H-1B lottery that immediately follows this
proclamation, the Secretary of State, the Attorney
General, the Secretary of Labor, and the Secretary of
Homeland Security shall jointly submit to the
President, through the Assistant to the President and
Homeland Security Advisor, a recommendation on whether
an extension or renewal of the restriction on entry
pursuant to section 1 of this proclamation is in the
interests of the United States.
Sec. 4. Amending the Prevailing Wage Levels. (a) The
Secretary of Labor shall initiate a rulemaking to
revise the prevailing wage levels to levels consistent
with the policy goals of this proclamation consistent
with section 212(n) of the INA, 8 U.S.C. 1182(n).
(b) The Secretary of Homeland Security shall
initiate a rulemaking to prioritize the admission as
nonimmigrants of high-skilled and high-paid aliens,
consistent with sections 101, 212, and 214 of the INA,
8 U.S.C. 1101, 1182, and 1184.
Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this
proclamation shall be construed to impair or otherwise
affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or
the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget
relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This proclamation shall be implemented
consistent with applicable law and subject to the
availability of appropriations.
(c) This proclamation is not intended to, and does
not, create any right or benefit, substantive or
procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any
party against the United States, its departments,
agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or
agents, or any other person.
[[Page 46030]]
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
nineteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord
two thousand twenty-five, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and
fiftieth.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 2025-18601
Filed 9-23-25; 11:15 am]
Billing code 3395-F4-P