The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program, alleging fraud

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration is suspending tech giant Microsoft from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the U.S. to live and work using H-1B visas as it accuses the company of fraud.

Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like the one Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of abusing essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In a wide-ranging announcement Thursday, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing firms.

The announcement came hours before Trump was scheduled to award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he is granting some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.

Vance says US workers are replaced with ‘foreign indentured servants’

Vance said the program from which Microsoft is being suspended requires companies to advertise jobs in America before applying to the Department of Labor to show they need to give a foreign worker a green card because of a lack of American workers.

“They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. 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," Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft."

Microsoft is No. 5 among U.S. employers when it comes to using H-1B visas, according data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amazon is No. 1.

Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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

“If the Trump administration were truly concerned that H-1B workers are ‘indentured servants,’ then the last thing they would do is block companies from helping their own H-1B workers get green cards,” he said. "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.”

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

“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 said in a White House news conference announcing the decision. "Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers."

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

H-1B program has been scrutinized

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

H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India.

Trump last year attempted to ratchet up the fee for H-1B work visas to $100,000, saying it would protect American workers from losing their jobs to lower-paid foreigners, but a federal judge struck that down in June.

The administration has since tried a different tack, announcing plans in August for a $103,265 fee. The proposed regulation described the new fee as a “dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system.” The rule isn’t yet final and is expected to face a legal challenge, like the one before it.

Trump also has targeted foreign students

The Vance announcement came a day after Trump's administration launched another broadside against international students and their ability to work in the U.S.