Overview

• Senate Judiciary leaders Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin sent letters on Sep. 25 to ten firms, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Deloitte, JPMorgan Chase, Tata Consultancy Services, Walmart and Cognizant.
• The lawmakers questioned continued reliance on H-1B visas while cutting U.S. jobs and asked whether companies make a good-faith effort to hire Americans first.
• Requests seek documentation on recruitment ads, any displacement of U.S. workers, salary comparisons between H-1B holders and domestic employees, and the use of outsourcing.
• Government data show Amazon and AWS received over 12,000 H-1B approvals in the first half of 2025, with more than 5,000 each at Microsoft and Meta, and 71% of beneficiaries last year were from India.
• The push follows a presidential proclamation imposing a $100,000 H-1B application fee meant to steer hiring toward U.S. workers, while Microsoft declined to comment and several companies did not immediately respond.