Donald Trump’s administration has temporarily banned Microsoft, Adobe, and several other tech companies from sponsoring workers for permanent US residency, claiming they abused immigration programs at the expense of American citizens. Vice-president JD Vance said on Thursday that the H-1B visa programme for highly skilled foreign workers had “become rife with fraud” and that over-reliance on such schemes was “a fundamental insult to the American worker.” He added that “no company in the US” had “abused this system” more than Microsoft. Vance’s message to Microsoft that it could not “lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants” triggered an angry reaction from the Indian government.
Referring to Vance’s remarks, it said “such descriptions are unwarranted and ignore the fact that Indian professionals in the United States are highly educated and skilled contributors to its economy and innovation ecosystem.” Six other IT outsourcing companies—Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini—were also suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification, or Perm, program, which allows US employers to hire foreign workers on a permanent basis. Microsoft said the “vast majority” of its employees in the US were American, while Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest outsourcing company, said its strategy was centred on hiring locally in the US and that Perm applications were in “single digits in the last two years.” Adobe and Tata as well as Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini did not respond to requests for comment. The announcement marks the latest move in the Trump administration’s broad crackdown on immigration.
It has previously taken aim at H-1B visas widely used by tech companies and specialist industries. Last year, the White House attempted to impose a $100,000 fee on new applications, but, in June, a federal judge ruled the fee amounted to an unauthorized tax and infringed on Congress’ authority to raise funds. The Trump administration has appealed against the ruling.
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