Vance announced Microsoft and seven other firms are suspended from a green card program. Microsoft will provide information.
The Trump administration said Thursday it is suspending Microsoft and several other companies from a program that lets employers sponsor foreign workers for green cards. It also turned its criticism on universities that host international students on exchange visas.
Vice President JD Vance announced the move at a White House news conference on the administration’s Fraud Task Force. He accused Microsoft of abusing the H-1B visa system and said the suspension also covers Adobe and the consulting firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. The other companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Vance said the program requires employers to advertise jobs in the United States and then show the Labor Department that no American workers are available before seeking a green card for a foreign worker. He said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. He described H-1B workers as “foreign indentured servants,” arguing they earn less than Americans and must leave the country if they lose their jobs.
Microsoft, which federal data rank fifth among U.S. employers for H-1B visa use, said it looks forward to giving the administration more information. The company said about 80% of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees, and that the rest involved people already legally in the United States. Doug Rand, a former senior adviser at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under President Joe Biden, called the announcement incoherent, arguing that a green card frees workers from depending on their employer for immigration status.
Vance also named nine universities he said merit investigation over their use of J-1 exchange visas: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, the University of California, Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and MIT. Stanford said it would cooperate. The others did not immediately respond.
The announcement came hours before President Donald Trump was scheduled to present the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. It followed a Department of Homeland Security proposal on Wednesday for a $70,000 fee on schools for each international student who takes part in the Optional Practical Training work program. A federal judge struck down an earlier plan for a $100,000 H-1B fee in June, and a proposed $103,265 fee announced in August is not final.
This report is based on information from The Associated Press.