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The immigration landscape for U.S. employers has shifted dramatically. The past six months alone have produced escalating enforcement activity, sweeping proposed changes to temporary visa categories, and reshaped adjudication standards — all while active litigation continues to alter the legal picture in real time. Below are five critical developments and recommended action items for each.

1. SURGE IN GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS

Employer-facing immigration enforcement has reached levels not seen in recent memory. ICE’s rate of Notices of Inspection (NOIs) for I-9 audits has increased significantly, and DHS has broadly expanded the types of I-9 violations that can result in immediate fines.

The Department of Labor has suspended PERM labor certification processing for several major employers while also launching “Project Firewall,” which gives the Secretary of Labor broad discretion to target employers for H-1B compliance investigations.

The State Department’s Fraud Unit has also greatly expanded investigations of U.S. employers involving visa fraud at U.S. consulates.

What Employers Should Do:

  • Conduct audits of I-9s (including a review of audit-trail sufficiency for electronic platforms),  PERM audit files, and H-1B public access files.
  • Review PERM recruitment methodology and strategy to ensure compliance with current enforcement trends.
  • Establish a protocol for responding to government site visits or subpoenas.

2. PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE H-1B PROGRAM

The H-1B program faces its most significant restructuring in decades. On August 25, 2026, DHS proposed an additional $103,265 fee for cap-subject H-1B petitions — on top of the existing $100,000 Presidential Proclamation fee (currently subject to litigation; see Section 5 below).

In October 2026, DHS also proposed a regulation that would eliminate the 60-day grace period for H-1B (and other) workers whose employment is terminated. If finalized, the rule would effectively require departure from the country immediately upon termination, without an opportunity to seek new employment or change immigration status.

What Employers Should Do:

  • Begin assembling your H-1B cap list earlier than usual (i.e., now) and assess wage-level classifications in light of the weighted lottery.
  • Model the financial impact of potential cumulative fees on your H-1B budget and determine company policy should the fees take effect this cap season despite potential litigation.
Continue Reading Five Immigration Developments That Will Define Employer Compliance in 2026
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When the US Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first DEI-related False Claims Act (FCA) settlement in April 2026, a key question emerged: was this an isolated enforcement action or the start of a broader strategy? The answer is now clear.

In recent months, the DOJ has secured additional multi-million dollar FCA settlements with major federal contractors. These headline-grabbing resolutions highlight the administration’s intention to use the FCA as a significant enforcement tool in cases involving workplace DEI initiatives that the DOJ alleges included race- or sex-conscious employment decisions inconsistent with federal anti-discrimination laws.

A Developing Enforcement Trend

The DOJ’s first DEI-related FCA settlement involved a large technology company that agreed to pay USD 17 million to resolve allegations that certain diversity-focused employment practices violated anti-discrimination requirements incorporated into its government contracts. The company denied wrongdoing and did not admit liability. (More here: The Next Stage in Enforcement Escalation: DOJ’s First DEI-Related FCA Settlement.)

Since then, the government has announced increasingly larger settlements involving other prominent federal contractors.

In August, a major professional services firm agreed to pay more than USD 21 million to resolve allegations that race and sex were considered in certain hiring, promotion, staffing, and professional development decisions. The settlement also resolved related claims brought by a private relator under the FCA’s whistleblower provisions.

Continue Reading DOJ Doubles Down: Latest FCA Settlements Signal DEI Enforcement Escalation
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In today’s M&A market, carve-out transactions remain one of the most important tools for private equity sponsors and strategic acquirers seeking to acquire high-value businesses from larger corporate groups. Yet while the commercial rationale may be straightforward, workforce execution rarely is. In global carve-outs, workforce issues often become the difference between a transaction that merely closes and a transaction that actually delivers. In our experience, workforce issues are rarely the reason a carve-out is pursued, but they are frequently the reason a transaction becomes more expensive, more complex, or slower to close than expected – all outcomes which can avoided with careful planning. A carve-out is rarely a simple transfer of employees, contracts and assets. More commonly, it requires separating a business that has been deeply embedded within a seller’s global operating structure, with shared employees, shared systems, centralized payroll functions, common benefit plans, employee representative obligations and differing transfer requirements across jurisdictions.

The key challenge is not identifying every workforce issue before signing – that’s impossible. The challenge is identifying the workforce issues that most likely impact deal certainty, closing timelines, costs, or Day 1 operations and building a practical execution plan around them. Most of these workforce issues ultimately stem from three fundamental questions:

  1. Who actually supports the business?
  2. How do those individuals move from Seller to Buyer?
  3. What must be operational on Day 1 for the business to function?

In practice, these questions often arise under intense time pressure, when the deal team is simultaneously negotiating transaction documents, building a TSA, standing up local employer infrastructure, managing employee communications and trying to preserve critical talent. That is why workforce planning needs to start early and be treated as part of the core separation strategy.

Question 1: Who Actually Supports the Business?

The first workforce question in any carve-out sounds simple: Who is part of the business being sold? In practice, it is often one of the most important and complex exercises in the entire transaction.

Continue Reading Global Carve-Outs: Why Workforce Execution Is Often the Critical Path
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We are pleased to share with you The Global Employer – Global Immigration & Mobility Quarterly Update, a collection of key updates from Asia Pacific, Canada, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Click here to view.

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Recent developments affecting Temporary Protected Status (TPS)[1] beneficiaries have created uncertainty for employers managing work authorization and reverification obligations. In response, California Attorney General Rob Bonta has reminded employers that changes affecting TPS beneficiaries do not change employers’ existing obligations under federal and California law. The guidance underscores a key compliance point: employers should not assume that an employee whose TPS designation has been affected is no longer authorized to work, and employers must continue to follow standard I-9, reverification, anti-discrimination, and anti-retaliation requirements.

The guidance reflects California’s longstanding approach of reinforcing workplace protections for immigrant workers during periods of federal immigration policy change. While TPS-related developments may create uncertainty for employers, the Attorney General’s message is that employers should continue to follow existing verification and reverification rules rather than impose additional requirements or take adverse action based on assumptions regarding an employee’s immigration status. The guidance further encourages employers to consult immigration counsel before acting based on an employee’s TPS status, recognizing that affected employees may remain authorized to work through another immigration status, a pending application, or another provision of law.

Among other things, the guidance reminds employers:

  • To follow current employment verification requirements. Employers must complete the Form I-9 to verify an employee’s identity and authorization to work in the United States and should monitor USCIS and E-Verify for current TPS termination and work authorization expiration dates.
  • That employment authorization may remain valid beyond the expiration date shown on a work permit. Employers should not rely solely on the expiration date printed on an Employment Authorization Document (EAD). Work authorization may be automatically extended through a Federal Register notice, USCIS notice, court order, or applicable DHS regulations. Before acting based on an apparent expiration date, employers should confirm whether an automatic extension or another basis for continued work authorization applies.
Continue Reading California Reminds Employers: TPS Changes Do Not Alter Workplace Obligations
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Federal EEO-1 reporting may be heading for a major reset — but employers should be careful not to mistake federal uncertainty for a broader retreat from workforce pay-data obligations. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed rescinding the long-standing annual EEO workforce demographic reporting rules, including the EEO-1 Component 1 report filed by many private employers and federal contractors. At the same time, several states and localities are moving in the opposite direction, adopting or expanding pay-data and demographic reporting requirements that are more granular, more jurisdiction-specific, and less dependent on the federal framework.

For multinational and multistate employers, the practical message is straightforward: do not dismantle EEO-1 data infrastructure yet. Instead, use this moment to rationalize workforce data governance, build flexibility for diverging state requirements, and ensure demographic and pay data are collected, stored, analyzed, and used in a legally defensible way.

EEO-1 Requirements

The EEO-1 framework has been part of the US employment law compliance architecture for decades. Historically, the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) have jointly administered the EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection program to monitor compliance with federal civil rights laws. Private employers with 100 or more employees and certain federal contractors with 50 or more employees have been required to file annual workforce demographic reports.

Component 1 requires covered employers to report headcount data disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, and job category. The Biden administration’s proposed rule to reinstate Component 2 pay data reporting — which required employers to report aggregate compensation and hours-worked data segmented by race, sex, and job category — was formally withdrawn following the change in administration and is not currently required.

What’s Changing at a Federal Level

On July 23, 2026, the EEOC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would rescind annual EEO-1, EEO-2, EEO-3, EEO-4, EEO-5, and EEO-6 workforce demographic reporting and related recordkeeping rules. If finalized as proposed, covered private sector employers — including covered federal contractors — would no longer file routine EEO-1 reports with the EEOC. Until the EEOC issues a final rule, existing federal reporting and recordkeeping requirements remain in effect.

For federal contractors, the status of EEO-1 reporting is more complicated than for purely private-sector employers. On August 21, 2026, OFCCP published three coordinated final rules that eliminate – from a regulatory perspective – federal contractor affirmative action requirements for women and minorities and narrow contractor affirmative action requirements regarding individuals with disabilities.

Continue Reading Federal Retreat, State Expansion: The New Workforce Data Landscape for US Employers
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Special thanks to our articling student Brianna Grieff for contributing to this update.

As pay transparency obligations continue to expand globally, employers with operations in Canada should be paying close attention to a rapidly evolving provincial landscape. Much like developments across the European Union, the United Kingdom, and numerous US states, Canadian jurisdictions are increasingly adopting measures designed to promote pay equity and greater transparency in compensation practices. These measures include salary disclosure requirements in job postings, restrictions on salary history inquiries, employee protections related to pay discussions, and, in some jurisdictions, pay transparency reporting obligations.

For US-based multinational employers, Canada presents both familiar challenges and unique compliance considerations. While Canada does not yet have a single nationwide pay transparency framework, a growing number of provinces have enacted or proposed legislation that requires employers to revisit recruiting practices, compensation governance, pay equity analyses, and data collection processes. As a result, organizations operating across multiple Canadian jurisdictions may find themselves managing another layer of regulatory complexity alongside existing US, EU, and UK transparency requirements.

The trend is gaining momentum. Recent developments in New Brunswick, together with existing requirements in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Ontario, and other provinces, reflect a growing expectation that employers provide greater visibility into compensation practices and be prepared to explain and defend pay differentials.

Below, we summarize the current pay transparency landscape across Canada and the key considerations for employers with Canadian workforces.

New Brunswick: The Latest Province to Act

New Brunswick recently joined the growing list of provinces imposing pay transparency requirements.

Continue Reading Canada’s Pay Transparency Momentum Continues: New Brunswick Signals the Direction of Travel
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Employment law developments across Asia Pacific continue at a rapid pace, with regulators expanding their enforcement powers, unions gaining influence, employees becoming more willing to challenge workplace decisions, and governments introducing significant reforms affecting workforce management.

Our latest AP Employers’ Forum 2026 Highlights and Insights report provides practical guidance on key developments across Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The report highlights several trends that should be on every multinational employer’s radar. Among them are South Korea’s far-reaching “Yellow Envelope Act,” which broadens union rights and may significantly affect restructuring and workforce reduction strategies; Australia’s proposed restrictions on non-compete clauses and increased scrutiny of AI-driven employment decisions; Singapore’s forthcoming Workplace Fairness Act; Taiwan’s new workplace bullying regime; and growing regulatory inspection and dawn raid activity across the region.

The report also examines the increasing complexity of cross-border non-compete enforcement, rising claims relating to equity incentive plans, and the challenges employers face when navigating restructurings in an environment marked by geopolitical uncertainty, union activism and rapid technological change.

Click here for more!

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On August 6, 2026, the IRS released Fact Sheet FS-2026-13, substantially revising and replacing FS-2026-01, its January 2026 guidance on the new deduction for qualified overtime compensation enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). The revised guidance reflects the transition from the temporary 2025 reporting relief period to a more formal compliance regime applicable for tax years 2026 through 2028.  As a reminder, the IRS provided transition penalty relief for tax year 2025 to excuse the requirement that employers and other payers report qualified overtime compensation separately on Forms W-2, 1099-NEC, and 1099-MISC. See Notice 2025-62.

While the updated fact sheet includes numerous technical revisions, several changes are particularly significant for employers, payroll providers, and employees seeking to claim the deduction. Most notably, the IRS emphasizes that beginning in 2026 employees generally may claim the deduction only based on amounts separately reported by employers, increasing the importance of accurate overtime calculations and information reporting.

Key Changes in FS-2026-13

The August update to the FAQs:

  • Removes guidance applicable solely to the 2025 transition year.
  • Clarifies deduction limitations and timing rules, including that the same principles governing when a payment is treated as wages for income tax withholding purposes apply to determine when qualified overtime compensation is paid.
  • Expands guidance regarding Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) coverage and exemptions.
  • Provides detailed Form W-2, Form 1099-NEC, and Form 1099-MISC reporting rules.
  • Adds federal income tax withholding guidance.
  • Clarifies the requirement that qualified overtime compensation be separately reported to support the deduction.
Continue Reading IRS Updates FAQs on the Qualified Overtime Compensation Deduction: Compliance Obligations for Employers
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The Department of Labor (DOL) issued Technical Release 2026‑02 on June 17, 2026, providing critical clarity for employers evaluating whether to offer contributions to “Trump Accounts” under IRC sections 530A and 128; contributions to Trump accounts could be made as of July 4, 2026. The guidance addresses a key open question flagged in our earlier post regarding whether these arrangements would trigger Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) plan status, which would implicate technical rules regarding fiduciary duties, claims and appeal procedures, and plan reporting and disclosures, among others.

The DOL concluded that Trump Accounts and related employer Trump Account Contribution Programs (TACPs) will generally not constitute “employee pension benefit plans” under ERISA Title I, even if funded in whole or in part by employer contributions pursuant to IRC section 128. The guidance provides favorable clarity and removes a potential stumbling block for employers considering establishing a TACP.

DOL Technical Release 2026-02

Prior to Technical Release 2026‑02, ERISA classification was a key unresolved risk for employers, particularly given that TACPs require a written employer program and could resemble benefit plans.

DOL’s conclusion that TACPs will generally not be subject to ERISA removes a major barrier for employers. The rationale underlying the guidance includes that Trump Accounts are individually owned Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), not employer‑established retirement plans; that in most cases, benefits accrue to a child (dependent), not the employee, which weighs against ERISA plan characterization; and that the accounts can be funded by multiple sources (family, government, employers), reinforcing their non‑employer‑centric design.

Continue Reading DOL Clarifies ERISA Treatment of Trump Accounts: What Employers Need to Know