June 24, 2025 – U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer announced at an agricultural industry group’s conference that she is creating a “concierge” team within DOL dedicated to helping employers work through issues they have navigating temporary work visa programs where DOL has a role, but in particular the H-2A program, which allows employers to hire migrant workers for seasonal jobs in agriculture (mostly crop farming) when U.S. workers are not available, and the H-2B program, for temporary jobs outside of agriculture. 

June 23, 2025 – DOL Secretary DeRemer issued a memo to the Acting Assistant Secretary of Employment and Training, the Acting Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, and the Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs, establishing the Office of Immigration Policy (OIP). The memo notes that the office will “provide employers with timely access to a qualified workforce while protecting the wages and working conditions of U.S. and foreign workers in their employment, whether on a permanent or temporary basis.” The memo notes the new OIP will monitor foreign labor certification—a process in which employers must first advertise open jobs before hiring through work visa programs—and “develop customer-centered policies…to improve access to employment-based visa programs” and will oversee coordination with other federal agencies with responsibilities over immigration.  

Impact: Both DOL Secretary DeRemer and USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins have made multiple statements about streamlining the process for employers to hire through temporary work visa programs so they can transition to a “100% legal workforce,” and to allay legitimate fears employers have about their workforces being deported or losing their work authorization. Employers have long complained that U.S. work visa programs are administratively burdensome, pushed for fewer rules that protect workers, and lobbied hard to keep lower wage rates for the migrant workers they hire through visa programs. (These wage rates, while often still too low, are intended to protect U.S. wage standards and prevent employers from using visa programs to drive down wages.)  Creation of the new DOL Office of Immigration Policy is likely a response to intense pressure on the Trump administration from employers concerned with how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda will affect their workforces. This new office at DOL, and the continued commitments to streamline or expedite work visa approvals, are part of the Trump administration’s answer: if some of their current workers are deported, the Trump administration can assist them in supplementing or replacing their current employees with workers on temporary visas, who have no legal outside options for work, no path to citizenship, and limited rights and bargaining power.