Trump Admin Suspends Microsoft From Sponsoring H-1B Visa Holders for Green Cards

President Donald Trump’s administration is coming for immigrant workers at Microsoft and other tech firms. Vice President JD Vance on Thursday accused the tech giant of fraud and announced its suspension from a program employers use to sponsor H-1B visa holders for green cards, the Associated Press reported.

Vance, an inveterate promoter of racist conspiracy theories , alleged at a press conference for the Fraud Task Force that Microsoft conspires to place job ads in obscure small-town papers. Then, according to Vance, Americans fail to see the ads, and Microsoft can claim it advertised the job to citizens before abusing H-1B holders as a pool of forced, foreign labor.

“They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper,” Vance said. “They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants.”

H-1B visas are nonimmigrant visas that provide temporary work status in the U.S. for three years with the option for an extension to six. The program is designed to let firms file to sponsor foreign workers with hard-to-find skill sets.

According to Axios and the Seattle Times , the administration is suspending Microsoft and the other firms from a separate program, the Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM). One PERM process allows a current H-1B holder’s employer to sponsor them for a green card, the separate, coveted document that conveys permanent residency anywhere in the country.

An employer must request labor certification through PERM, which means demonstrating why they can’t find a qualified U.S. worker, to begin sponsoring a worker for a green card. But once the card is actually issued, the employer’s involvement is over. Green cards obtained through PERM are the same as any other green card, conveying the same rights and privileges.

So the program actually does the opposite of what Vance says (creating “foreign indentured servants”): It creates legal, permanent U.S. residents, who employers can’t coerce with the threat of expulsion via visa cancellation, and who are generally free to apply to the same jobs at the same salaries that U.S. citizens do.

“Once you have a green card, you’re no longer dependent on your employer for your immigration status — you’re a permanent resident who can change jobs and negotiate higher wages without fear,” Biden-era USCIS advisor Doug Rand told the AP.

Anyhow, small-town newspapers are mostly going out of business , and Microsoft’s actual job site is right here .

Other companies subject to the decision include Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, and other IT firms, according to Reuters . Vance, for his part, seemed particularly interested in singling out Microsoft.

“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft,” Vance continued. He also stated Microsoft laid off 6,000 workers last year (his undercount, actually ) and obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards for workers.