The figure appears in the department’s 2025 accomplishments report and represents investigations launched by the agency—not findings that the companies violated the law. The development matters to employers, recruiters, H-1B workers and U.S. job applicants because federal agencies are increasingly comparing visa filings, workplace records, recruiting practices and actual job duties.

What changed

Project Firewall launched on September 19, 2025. Bloomberg Law reported on April 7, 2026, that a Labor Department official described a 48% increase in the agency’s H-1B investigative caseload since the initiative began.

Bloomberg Law also reported that immigration attorneys representing employers have seen more site visits and broader, more data-driven information requests. The attorneys said inquiries that begin with one worker can expand to payroll and immigration records involving other employees. Those accounts describe reported enforcement activity and compliance concerns, not a new rule making ordinary H-1B hiring unlawful.

The H-1B program remains available to employers that meet its requirements. Project Firewall is an enforcement initiative, not a new H-1B statute.

What DOL is examining

Labor Department materials identify priorities that include possible failures to recruit U.S. workers in good faith, preference for temporary visa holders, retaliation against workers who raise concerns, and inaccurate descriptions of job duties, requirements or working conditions.

The department’s H-1B labor-condition framework also covers wage and workplace obligations. During an investigation, an employer may need to reconcile labor-condition applications, H-1B petitions, public-access files, payroll records, recruitment documentation, job descriptions, work locations and the duties workers actually perform.

Bloomberg Law reported that officials have asked detailed questions about qualifications, job requirements and workplace duties, with answers compared against information in earlier filings. A mismatch can prompt additional questions, but it does not automatically establish a violation or guarantee a penalty.

Potential consequences

Depending on the facts and the applicable proceedings, DOL enforcement may involve back wages, civil penalties and possible debarment from the H-1B program for at least one year. These are potential remedies, not the outcome of every investigation.

Employers should distinguish DOL’s wage-and-hour and H-1B compliance work from the Justice Department’s separate enforcement of citizenship-status discrimination rules. The two areas can overlap in practice when recruiting language suggests that a position is reserved for H-1B workers.

Why job advertisements matter

On July 7, 2026, the Justice Department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section finalized a settlement agreement with Creative Team, LLC, a Texas-based consulting company. DOJ said the agreement resolved its determination that the company engaged in citizenship-status discrimination in hiring and recruitment after posting a job advertisement restricting positions to H-1B visa holders without legal justification.

The agreement required Creative Team to pay $4,730 in civil penalties, train employees and stop using employment-advertisement restrictions that unlawfully exclude protected workers. The case illustrates a separate compliance risk under the Immigration and Nationality Act: job advertisements that limit hiring to H-1B workers without a documented legal basis can draw DOJ scrutiny.

A practical compliance check

• Compare current job descriptions and actual duties with H-1B petitions and labor-condition applications.
• Keep public-access files, payroll records, wage documentation and recruitment records complete and consistent.
• Review job advertisements and recruiter instructions for language limiting hiring to H-1B workers without a documented legal justification.
• Give managers a clear process for responding to agency inquiries, and avoid casual answers that conflict with filed records.
• Coordinate HR, recruiting, managers and immigration counsel before changing job duties, work locations or wage arrangements.

Employers should watch for additional DOL investigations, DOJ settlements, interagency information-sharing and any future H-1B wage changes. An investigation or settlement involving an employer does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing by every H-1B worker or invalidate every visa petition.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Labor: 2025 accomplishments
• Bloomberg Law: Employers See Spike in Labor Department Immigration Enforcement
• U.S. Department of Justice: Creative Team settlement

The letters address specific workplace facts rather than creating a universal new rule. They matter to nonexempt employees who split a day between home and an office, as well as field-service workers who receive assignments or perform tasks before traveling to a first job.

What the two letters address

FLSA2026-9 considers a voluntary split-day schedule in which an employee works at home, travels to an office during the day and may later return home to finish work. The Wage and Hour Division said the mid-day trip can remain an ordinary, unpaid commute when the employee is fully relieved from duty and the travel primarily benefits the employee.

The timing alone does not turn the trip into paid travel between job sites. A commute that occurs during the day is not automatically compensable simply because the employee worked at home earlier or will work again after arriving.

But the work performed at home is a separate question. If a nonexempt employee performs job duties before leaving or after arriving, that time must still be recorded and paid. Unpaid travel does not erase paid work performed at either location.

Receiving an assignment is not the same as doing work

FLSA2026-10 examines a field-service worker who receives pages, calls clients to schedule appointments and coordinates with other workers before driving to a first client.

The Labor Department distinguished between merely receiving pages or assignments and actively carrying out job duties. Simply receiving an assignment generally is not compensable. Calling clients, scheduling appointments and coordinating other workers can be integral and indispensable to the employee’s principal work, however, making that time compensable.

That distinction matters to workers who start the day at home or in an employer-provided vehicle. A company vehicle does not automatically make every mile paid, and working from home does not automatically make every pre-departure activity unpaid.

When the drive to the first job may become paid work

The drive to a first client may become compensable after the employee has begun principal work. The Labor Department’s analysis considers whether the employer controls the timing and manner of travel, requires substantial work before or during the trip, and limits the freedom normally associated with an ordinary commute.

For example, a drive may be treated differently when the worker must complete client calls and coordinate assignments before leaving, or when the worker performs those duties while traveling under employer direction. A flexible schedule with no required work during the trip may preserve the character of an ordinary commute.

Ogletree Deakins, an employment-law firm that reviewed the letters, described the analysis as fact-specific and centered on who primarily benefits from the time, how much control the employer exercises and whether the employee retains the freedom of a normal commute.

The federal baseline still applies

The Labor Department’s general guidance says ordinary travel from home to work and back is usually not work time. Travel between job sites during the workday is generally compensable, as is travel that is part of an employee’s principal activity.

That baseline comes from the department’s general hours-worked guidance, including Fact Sheet #22, which was revised in July 2008. The fact sheet provides background on existing federal principles; it is not the July 2026 development itself.

The new letters add detail to how those principles may apply in hybrid and field-service settings. They do not establish that every mid-day commute is unpaid or that every employer-directed trip is paid. The facts and the degree of employer control remain important.

What workers and employers should do

Workers should keep accurate records of client calls, scheduling, coordination, required travel and work performed at home outside scheduled hours. They should also check state wage-and-hour rules, which may provide broader protections or compensation requirements than federal law.

Employers should review hybrid-work policies, dispatch procedures, travel instructions and timekeeping systems. The central question is whether the system captures all time actually worked while distinguishing ordinary commuting from travel that serves the employer’s operational needs.

Opinion letters are official written interpretations applied to the facts presented in a request. The Wage and Hour Division says conclusions depend on the accuracy and completeness of those facts, so the letters may not resolve every other hybrid, dispatch or field-service arrangement.

Future court decisions, state enforcement actions or additional Labor Department guidance could clarify how the framework applies in other workplaces.

Sources

• U.S. Department of Labor: July 22 opinion-letter announcement
• Ogletree Deakins: Analysis of the two travel letters