Microsoft suspended from green card program as Vance alleges fraud

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration announced Thursday that it is suspending Microsoft and several other companies from a program that allows foreign workers to apply for green cards, while also going after universities that welcome international students to the United States through exchange programs.

Vice President JD Vance’s announcement marks the latest turnaround by the Trump administration toward employers and universities that welcome foreign students and workers to the country.

Such programs have often been targeted by some Trump supporters, who say they harm American students and workers. Supporters say they allow the United States to attract top talent from around the world and fill significant recruiting gaps.

Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like H-1B visa – which Vance has accused Microsoft of abuse – essentially allowing American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In the high-profile announcement, Vance and other senior administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing companies.

The announcement came a few hours before Trump should reward the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to the CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadellaas part of an event in which he awards some of the country’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.

Vance says American workers are being replaced by ‘foreign indentured servants’

Vance said the program Microsoft is suspending requires companies to post job openings in America before applying to the Department of Labor to demonstrate that they need to grant a green card to a foreign worker due to a lack of American workers.

“They’ll put an ad in a small town paper. They’ll go out there and say, ‘We applied for a position at our company, and no one is responding.’ And they will use that lack of response to then replace American workers with what are effectively foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. “Unfortunately, no company in the United States has used this system more than Microsoft.”

Microsoft is No. 5 among U.S. employers in use of H-1B visas, according to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amazon is #1.

Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington, said it looked forward to “providing the administration with additional information.” Of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, the company said 80% were to “extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.”

“This wasn’t about hiring new people,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The other requests for new employees were people already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they represent only 1% of our American workforce. They are not newcomers to our country.”

The company added that it only files H-1B petitions for “those who meet the rigorous standards for this visa category.”

Doug Rand, a former senior advisor at USCIS during the Biden administration, called Vance’s announcement “incoherent.”

“If the Trump administration was truly concerned that H-1B workers were ‘indentured servants,’ then the last thing it would do is prevent companies from helping their own H-1B workers obtain green cards,” he said. “Once you have a green card, you are no longer dependent on your employer for your immigration status: you are a permanent resident who can change jobs and negotiate higher salaries without fear.”

Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 U.S. workers last year, but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards.

“If you do the math, for every worker Microsoft laid off, they replaced them with one and a half foreign contract employees,” Vance said at a White House news conference announcing the decision. “Our message to Microsoft is: You are a great American company, but you need to hire great American workers.”

Vance said H-1B workers are effectively indentured foreign servants because if they lose their jobs, they must leave the country and earn less than Americans in the same position.

The H-1B program has come under scrutiny

The H-1B program has long been a target of Trump supporters, who say the program harms American workers and is riddled with abuse.

H-1B visas are intended for highly skilled jobs that it is difficult to find American workers to fill. Tech companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to Indian workers.

Trump tried last year to increase the H-1B work visa fee at $100,000saying it would protect American workers from losing their jobs to lower-paid foreigners, but a federal judge struck down that decision in June.

The administration has since tried a different approach, announcing plans in August for $103,265. THE proposed regulation described the new fees as a “dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs associated with administering the legal immigration system.” The rule is not yet final and is expected to be the subject of a legal challenge, like the one that preceded it.

Ron Hira, a political science professor at Howard University and a longtime critic of the H-1B program, called the ruling against Microsoft “very significant.” Hira noted that the White House issued a little-noticed executive order last month directing government agencies to “implement appropriate measures to protect American workers from abuses of the H-1B program and ensure that the program serves the national interest.”

“There are supposed to be protections for American workers that say: If you hire an H-1B, you promise that you will not negatively affect American workers with similar employment,” Hira said. “It was never enforced.”

Besides Microsoft, Vance said the government was also suspending Adobe and technology consulting firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. The companies did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Trump also targeted foreign students

Vance’s announcement comes a day after the Trump administration launched another offensive against international students and their ability to work in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security proposed Wednesday $70,000 fee for international students looking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay tuition for each student participating in the Optional Practical Training program, known as OPT, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their studies.

Vance also denounced universities, suggesting they were abusing a program to allow international students coming to the United States These temporary visas, called J-1 visas, allow international visitors to temporarily come to the United States for work and study exchange programs. In most cases, to obtain the visa, students must receive the majority of their funding from an institution, such as a scholarship granting organization, rather than paying their tuition fees personally.

Vance singled out nine universities that he said deserved further investigation for J-1 visa fraud, saying they used the program in greater proportions than their counterparts.

The universities were Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; the California Institute of Technology, or Caltech; Arizona State; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT. Stanford said it would cooperate with the investigation. The other universities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. ___

Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, and Paul Wiseman and Annie Ma in Washington, D.C. contributed. Ortutay reported from Oakland, California.