Forty-six certified labor condition applications filed by 33 private employers requested 193 H-1B positions that either named the Texas Department of Transportation at a listed worksite or listed a recognized TxDOT address, according to an audit by The Dallas Express of federal disclosure data.
The finding raises a question not answered by Gov. Greg Abbott’s January restriction on state H-1B hiring: Can a covered agency receive H-1B labor through a private company that files the petition itself?
The public policy documents do not expressly address private companies placing their employees at state-agency worksites. Abbott’s directive applies to new petitions filed by covered state agencies and public universities. Neither the directive nor the Texas Workforce Commission’s implementation page says that a private contractor must obtain state permission before filing for its own employee.
The records do not establish that 193 people received H-1B status, entered the United States, or began work. A certified labor condition application is an employer attestation concerning positions, wages, and worksites. A company generally must submit that certification as part of a separate petition to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The 138 figure does not survive
A narrow search limited to the first worksite in the main fiscal year 2026 third-quarter disclosure workbook produces 39 certified H-1B applications requesting 137 positions. Adding one University of Texas at Austin case with the status “Certified – Withdrawn” produces 138 positions and 30 employers, closely reproducing the supplied claim.
A broader name search adds four certified one-position applications that used variants such as “Texas DOT” and “State of Texas: Dept of Transportation.” Searching the recognized 6230 E. Stassney Lane address adds two more one-position applications. Accenture LLP identified the secondary entity only as “State of Texas,” while Adept Computer Consultants Inc. did not identify a secondary entity.
The narrow method also misses the Department of Labor’s separate worksite file. The file shows a 50-position CGI Technologies and Solutions application whose first location was CGI’s Bee Cave Road office and whose additional location named TxDOT at 6230 E. Stassney Lane in Austin. Adding the 50-position CGI filing, the four broader name matches and the two address-only matches, while excluding the withdrawn university filing, produces 193 positions across 46 LCAs and 33 private employers.
The audit counted each unique certified case once and used the application’s total-worker-position field. It did not add workers across multiple worksites, which could count the same requested positions more than once. The Department of Labor files are cumulative through June 30, 2026.
CGI accounts for 151 of the 193 positions. Its four certified applications request 50 software quality and test engineers and 101 software developers. The supplied claim described CGI’s large developer filings as “Software Developer III.” That title belongs to two one-position applications filed by Archents Inc.
Thirty-one of the 46 certified LCAs, representing 129 positions, were received after Abbott issued his directive on January 27, 2026. Applications representing 182 positions list intended employment start dates after the directive.
Most positions list recognized TxDOT addresses
Applications representing 187 positions list either 6230 E. Stassney Lane or 125 E. 11th St., addresses TxDOT publishes as a physical or mailing location in Austin. One additional filing lists 6320 E. Stassney Lane, a variant that TxDOT pages reviewed by The Dallas Express do not identify as an agency address.
Five one-position applications name TxDOT as the secondary entity but give non-TxDOT street addresses in Liberty Hill, Texas, Kentucky, Colorado or Kansas. Those rows may describe remote work. They do not establish physical presence in a TxDOT building.
Federal worksite guidance defines a place of employment as the physical location where the employee performs work. The disclosure files are based on information employers submitted, however, and do not provide badge records, time sheets or confirmation from TxDOT.
The directive regulates the petitioner
Abbott’s January 27 directive says no state agency controlled by a gubernatorially appointed head or public institution of higher education may “initiate or file any new petition” without written permission from TWC through May 31, 2027.
TWC’s public guidance repeats those two categories and provides a permission process for state employers. It does not mention contractors, subcontractors or staffing vendors. Every application in the 193-position count names a private company, not TxDOT, as the H-1B employer.
The records therefore do not show that TxDOT violated the directive. The text of the directive and TWC guidance does not expressly require the private petitioners in the audited data to obtain TWC permission, even when an application identifies TxDOT as a secondary entity.
The Dallas Express previously reported on Abbott’s filing freeze, H-1B activity at Texas universities, related spending at Texas A&M, a visa renewal at Texas State, filings by Dallas ISD and the federal H-1B fee. The TxDOT-linked records present a different structure because private companies, rather than the public entity, filed the LCAs.
Contract records show several possible paths
The Texas Department of Information Resources lists CGI as the prime vendor on four active statewide contracts. One staff contract permits eligible agencies to obtain hourly IT staff through requests for resumes or statements of work at negotiated rates that cannot exceed role-specific ceilings. A second vehicle covers deliverables-based application development, data, validation and project management services.
The staff contract’s standard terms define a worker as either the vendor’s employee or a subcontractor’s employee. They require compliance with federal immigration law and E-Verify for covered employees assigned to Texas work. The reviewed terms do not contain a U.S.-citizen-first clause, an H-1B prohibition or a separate recruitment obligation for state work.
A request-for-resumes purchase can let an agency evaluate an individual worker’s resume. A statement of work can instead purchase a team or defined services. The contract documents alone do not show which method TxDOT used for the people covered by the LCAs or whether TxDOT approved particular workers.
A historical purchase order shows TxDOT authorized $100.5 million for CGI to develop, maintain and implement the TxDOTCONNECT system. Its final revision extended the order only through December 26, 2025, before most of the audited employment periods. Public records reviewed by The Dallas Express did not identify a current TxDOT purchase order or work authorization tying the 2026 LCAs to that expired order or to an active DIR vehicle.
That missing link prevents a defensible total for what TxDOT paid the 33 employers. It also prevents an apples-to-apples comparison between each worker’s LCA wage and the amount billed to taxpayers. A statewide not-to-exceed rate includes overhead and profit and is not proof of the actual TxDOT rate or a worker’s assigned labor category.
Wage and recruitment limits
CGI’s 50 quality and test positions list a salary range of $87,672 to $162,672 and a prevailing wage of $87,672. Two 50-position developer applications list $139,152 to $214,152 and a prevailing wage of $139,152. A one-position developer application lists $159,600 against a $139,152 prevailing wage. Federal wage rules require the employer to pay at least the higher of the applicable prevailing wage or its actual wage for similarly employed workers.
The data provide no evidence that an American worker lost a job. Ordinary H-1B rules also do not impose a universal requirement to prove that no qualified American was available.
Twenty-nine one-position LCAs mark their employers as H-1B-dependent and say the workers qualify as exempt because of pay of at least $60,000, a related master’s degree or both. Department of Labor exemption guidance says dependent employers that use only exempt workers on an LCA are relieved of additional recruitment, hiring and non-displacement attestations. CGI marked itself as not H-1B-dependent on its four filings.
The public-record limit
The federal records establish a larger pool of TxDOT-linked H-1B positions than the supplied estimate and show that most were requested after Abbott’s directive. They do not establish how many people are working, which TxDOT contracts fund them, who selected them or what taxpayers pay for their labor.
Those questions can be answered only with current contractor rosters, purchase orders, work authorizations, invoices, statements of work and worker-selection records. The available records establish the scale of the applications and the distinction between state-filed petitions and filings by private employers.
Provided by Dallas Express
