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Vice President Vance Suspends Microsoft From PERM Green Card Program
Confirmed
In Short: Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that Microsoft has been suspended from the PERM green card sponsorship program, citing concerns over foreign worker visa abuse and domestic job displacement.
Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that Microsoft has been suspended from the PERM green card sponsorship program, citing concerns over foreign worker visa abuse and domestic job displacement. The move came as part of a broader crackdown on visa programs that Vance said undercut American workers.
Vance said the suspension was necessary because Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, effectively replacing each laid-off worker with one and a half foreign workers.
"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 during a White House news conference.
The Department of Labor is pausing new and pending applications under the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) system, temporarily blocking Microsoft from transitioning foreign employees to permanent U.S. residency.
Vance also accused several universities of using J-1 visas at unusually high rates, singling out nine universities for further investigation. He noted that these universities were employing J1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61%, compared to the national average of 38%.
"These universities are employing J1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61%. The national average is 38%. So something weird is going on at these universities!" Vance said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller added that the H-1B program requires individuals to have unique, highly specialized occupations, but many foreign workers are being brought into the country for jobs that are not specialized and are currently being done by American workers at lower pay.
"The H-1B program … requires individuals, for example, to have a unique, highly specialized occupation. … And yet, in case after case after case, we see individuals that are being brought into the country for skills that are not specialized, that are not unique, and that are not skilled, and that are doing work that is currently being done by American workers, but [with] vastly lower pay," Miller said.
Vance also targeted global IT outsourcing giants, accusing them of fueling visa fraud alongside domestic corporations by placing foreign contract workers into American jobs.
"That is a scandalous system that we’ve allowed in this country for far too long," Vance said.
Microsoft issued a statement shortly after the announcement, noting that the vast majority of its employees in the United States are Americans. A company spokesperson told Politico that approximately 6,000 H-1B applications were submitted during the last fiscal year, but that 80% were for extensions or changes of status involving existing Microsoft employees rather than new hires.
"We decided to suspend the PERM program for Microsoft, which means they will no longer be able to apply, they'll no longer be able to take those H1Bs and apply for permanent resident status within the United States of America," Vance said.
What this adds
The Vance announcement came a day after the Trump administration proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the U.S., further tightening restrictions on foreign workers.
At the same time, Vance said, Microsoft was approved for more than 6,000 H-1B visas and filed 3,682 PERM applications, including nearly 1,000 applications for positions that matched jobs held by the American workers who were laid off.
A company spokesperson told Politico that approximately 6,000 H-1B applications were submitted during the last fiscal year, but that 80% were for extensions or changes of status involving existing Microsoft employees rather than new hires.
Administration officials say the many visa programs keep roughly 2.5 million foreign workers in jobs that would otherwise be held by American graduates.
Background
Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that Microsoft has been suspended from the PERM green card sponsorship program, citing concerns over foreign worker visa abuse and domestic job displacement.
What's confirmed
- 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. READ MORE: Trump administration proposes a $70,000 fee for international students to work in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States.
- "Our message to Microsoft is: You're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers."
- "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.
- Microsoft issued a comprehensive statement shortly after the Thursday news conference, in which they noted that "the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans."
What's still developing
- WATCH LIVE: Trump awards Elon Musk the National Medal of Science, among other awards for tech execs Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, near Seattle, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- READ MORE: Here's why experts think Trump took 'a sledgehammer' to the H-1B visa worker program 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.
- Rebecca Santana, Associated Press Rebecca Santana, Associated Press Seung Min Kim, Associated Press Seung Min Kim, Associated Press 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.
- Other attendees included Microsoft $MSFT CEO Satya Nadella, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and co-founder Tom Brown, Amazon $AMZN founder Jeff Bezos, AMD $AMD CEO Lisa Su, Broadcom $AVGO CEO Hock Tan, and Palo Alto Networks $PANW CEO Nikesh Arora.
- About 31 executives and officials attended Tuesday's lunch, including the CEOs of Nvidia, Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic President Donald Trump hosted roughly 31 technology executives and government officials at a White House lunch Tuesday, as calls from AI researchers and industry leaders for stricter oversight of artificial intelligence grew louder.
- At a White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud press conference on Thursday, Vance was joined by Attorney General Todd Blanche, Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and other federal officials to outline the administration’s efforts to target system abuse, protect domestic wages, and prioritize American employment.
- Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling also announced he would block the government award of residency visas to foreign workers at Microsoft, Adobe, and five of the biggest Indian-run staffing companies.
- Breitbart News has posted more than 1,000 articles on the visa programs — especially the H-1B and J-1 programs — since 2011.
- He announced that Microsoft and Adobe, plus multiple Indian-run staffing companies, will be denied visa workers: Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers.
- US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move along with Vice President JD Vance and the head of the US Anti-Fraud Task Force, accusing companies of misusing employment-visa programmes and taking jobs away from American workers.
- “I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labour Certification Programme some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini,” Sonderling said..@Sonderling47: “I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labor Certification Program some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini — and also, due to multiple active federal investigations, @USDOL is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the program.” — Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 8, 2026 The secretary further said that the Department of Labour was also suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the programme.
- The crackdown on Microsoft came under Vance’s purview as the head of a fraud task force, but the targeting revealed the tension between the companies powering U.S. economic growth and the administration’s efforts to reduce immigration that it says has come at the expense of American workers.