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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration barred Microsoft Thursday from participating in a program that allows foreign workers in the US on a H-1B visa to apply for a green card, with Vice President JD Vance accusing the tech giant of fraud.
“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance told reporters in the latest announcement from his federal fraud task force.
Critics of the H-1B program — which permits workers with special skills legal employment in the US — say it is overused, allows cheaper foreign workers to replace American employees, and is rife with abuse.
Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling added that some of the largest IT firms in the world — including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini, as well as Adobe — would also be suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program.
“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies,” the newly confirmed secretary said. “Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers.”
The move is one of a series of actions meant to protect American white-collar workers, Sonderling said.
“It begins with universities and companies that have turned into visa mills, promoting foreign workers that have lied about their qualifications to take jobs from our beloved American workers,” he claimed.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment. CEO Satya Nadella was due to join President Trump later Thursday to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
It’s unclear why the Trump administration is targeting the Redmond, Wash., based company, but Vance accused Microsoft of being the most frequent hirer of foreign workers over American applicants.
The VP claimed the company laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
“Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants,” said Vance, pointing out that foreign workers are subject to deportation if they lose their job.
However, Lisa Monaco, a former deputy attorney general under Joe Biden and Microsoft’s current president of global affairs, is a longtime Trump target, having overseen the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents from his first term.
