As the federal government shutdown drags on, the immigration system is suffering a lesser-known—but critical—consequence: the complete stoppage of visa certifications and green card processes for legal immigrant workers. The Department of Labor’s shutdown has frozen key parts of the legal immigration system, leaving immigrant workers and employers across the U.S. in limbo.
While U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) remains operational—thanks to its fee-based funding—the Department of Labor, which handles the labor certifications necessary for most work-based visas, is shuttered. This includes the Labor Condition Applications required for H-1B visas and the PERM certifications for employment-based green cards.
Immigration attorney Anna Gorisch told The Center Square that the shutdown has paralyzed critical steps in the legal immigration process. “With the government shutdown, the delays that are already so bad will just be much worse,” she said. “I can’t do anything because [the] Department of Labor is closed.”
The PERM process alone can take up to two years and includes a wage determination stage that already takes 9 to 12 months to complete—delays made worse by the shutdown. Compounding the issue, wage determinations expire, forcing employers to restart applications when promotions or changes occur mid-process.
Gorisch criticized the Department of Labor’s role in wage certification for immigrant workers. She pointed to high wage mandates under the H-2A program, which she claims lead many farms to hire illegal labor instead of complying with unrealistic federal wage rules.
According to USDA data, 42% of U.S. farmworkers lack legal work authorization—a statistic Gorisch says is driven by burdensome legal processes. The Trump administration recently proposed basing wage rates on localized labor data rather than national averages to make compliance more feasible.
“There’s got to be a better way to do this,” Gorisch said. “DOL is just a giant bureaucracy with lots of red tape. It’s a miserable system to deal with.”
