Also on Sept. 18, 2026, the President signed Executive Order 14431, "Enhancing Program Integrity and Interagency Coordination in the Administration of the H-1B Nonimmigrant Visa Program," published in the Federal Register on Sept. 23, 2026. It directs the Secretaries of State, Labor, and Homeland Security — coordinating with the Departments of Commerce and Education and the Small Business Administration — to take into account "whether the employer sponsor directly or indirectly engaged in layoffs within the previous year or plans future layoffs that negatively affect the employment of similarly situated United States workers" in administering the H-1B program.
The order requires the Secretary of Labor, through the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, within 30 days, to begin reviewing data related to previously submitted Labor Condition Applications to determine whether further action against sponsoring employers is warranted. On its own terms, the order does not itself change any USCIS adjudication standard or set a new prevailing-wage rule — it directs agencies to develop that implementation, which has not yet been published. A separate DHS rule already governs the H-1B registration and weighted-selection lottery process, and this order does not alter that rule.
This is a directive to agencies, not a rule affecting how to file anything today. If you work with an employer whose H-1B sponsorship could be affected by a layoff, ask your employer's immigration counsel whether any agency guidance has since followed from this order before assuming your own filing is affected.