JD Vance announces H-1B visa 'abuse' crackdown; suspends Microsoft, Adobe from green card program

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Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that the Trump administration is suspending Microsoft, Adobe and six major outsourcing firms from a program used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency as it cracks down on alleged abuse of H-1B and J-1 visas.

The administration also opened investigations into nine universities, alleging employers and schools have used the programs to undercut American workers.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini will no longer be able to submit new or have pending applications processed through the Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM. The process is generally an employer’s first step in sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment-based green card.

Vance said the PERM suspensions will remain in place "as long as it needs to," adding that the administration has tools to extend them indefinitely but wants companies to change their hiring practices.

When asked what made the conduct fraudulent, Vance said employers must certify that a foreign worker has specialized skills that cannot be filled by an American worker. The administration alleges those certifications are false when companies use the program to replace U.S. workers with lower-paid foreign employees.

Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers,” Sonderling said, claiming they received more than 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications.

Vance singled out Microsoft, saying the company laid off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards.

“Microsoft, you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said. “You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”

The suspension comes as Trump is scheduled to honor Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella later Thursday with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a White House science summit. The action applies to Microsoft’s use of the PERM program, not Nadella personally.

Vance argued that the H-1B program — intended for employers that cannot fill specialized jobs with U.S. workers — has become “rife with fraud.” He alleged some companies post ineffective job advertisements, then cite a lack of applicants to justify hiring foreign workers who are paid less and can lose their ability to remain in the United States if they lose their jobs.