Republican Rep. Rich McCormick of Georgia is formally asking the Trump administration to investigate what he describes as rampant fraud and abuse in the H-1B foreign worker visa program within his own district, which encompasses Atlanta's northern suburbs and part of Fulton County.
McCormick, who represents Georgia's 7th Congressional District, sent the request Tuesday to the administration, according to Fox News Politics, which first reported the letter. The district is located in one of the country's premier battleground states and includes communities in the Atlanta metro area.
The request points to the H-1B program's origins in the Immigration Act of 1990, which McCormick noted was established so American businesses could "temporarily bring in foreign citizens to fill key, high-skill employment positions when the domestic workforce demonstrably cannot provide the necessary labor."
"Bad actors have developed illicit methods for meeting the requirements for obtaining H-1B visas and the necessary work authorizations, and they employ these methods at scale to enrich themselves through fraud and exploitation via the most threadbare compliance with the letter of the law," McCormick wrote in the letter.
McCormick said the alleged fraud is causing uncertainty in the U.S. labor market by undercutting wages and increasing competition for American workers, especially recent college graduates entering the workforce for the first time.
The letter asks the Trump administration to open a formal investigation into the visa program's operation in the district. The specific allegations have not been independently confirmed, and no federal agency has announced a probe.
Fulton County, which overlaps with part of McCormick's district, is also home to District Attorney Fani Willis, who has been a frequent target of Republican scrutiny in recent years.
The H-1B program has become a flashpoint inside the MAGA coalition. Vice President JD Vance has called the system "broken" and has pushed to eliminate it outright. Supporters of the program, including Elon Musk, argue it is critical for attracting global talent in technology and engineering fields that keep the United States competitive.
The debate is not merely academic in Georgia. Metro Atlanta has become a major technology and corporate hub, and the northern suburbs in McCormick's district are home to a dense concentration of employers who rely on high-skill visas.
McCormick's request puts the issue directly before an administration that has made immigration enforcement a centerpiece of its second term, including mass deportation operations and sweeping border security measures.
It is not yet known whether the administration will act on the request, what specific evidence McCormick submitted, or how many H-1B visas are at issue in the district. No federal agency has publicly responded to the letter.
For now, the request stands as the latest front in a growing internal Republican fight over legal immigration — a fight that pits the party's populist base against its corporate donor class in a state Trump carried decisively in 2024.
Our Take
Let's be clear about what's happening here: a sitting congressman is telling the federal government that a program meant to fill genuine labor shortages is being gamed at scale, in his own backyard, in a blue city that has spent years lecturing the rest of Georgia about how to run things.
McCormick is right to force this into the open. The H-1B program was never supposed to be a loophole for cheap labor or a pipeline for fraud. It was supposed to be a last resort when no American could do the job. Instead, it has become a magnet for abuse, and the American workers who get squeezed out — especially the kids who just graduated with engineering and computer science degrees — are the ones paying the price.
Note who is on which side of this fight. JD Vance says the system is broken and wants it gone. Elon Musk says we need it to keep the best and brightest. Both of those things can be true, and that is exactly why fraud in the program has to be rooted out before anyone argues about expansion. You cannot defend a system you refuse to audit.
The administration should take McCormick's request seriously. Open the investigation. Subpoena the records. Find out who is gaming the system, how they are doing it, and how many American workers got passed over so a foreign labor middleman could collect a fee.
Patriots, this is what America First looks like when it is actually enforced — not just at the border, but inside the agencies that hand out the visas. If the program is clean, prove it. If it is not, shut down the fraud and hold the bad actors accountable. The answer should not take six months and three committee hearings to produce.
