Visa for immigrant workers. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Microsoft and Adobe will be excluded from a program used to sponsor specialized foreign workers for permanent residence, accusing both tech companies of fraud and saying the measure is intended to protect American workers.
At a press conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance announced that the companies will no longer be able to use the PERM program to process permanent residence, commonly known as a « green card,» for certain foreign workers, including employees who may currently hold H-1B visas for highly specialized occupations.
Vance accused the companies of using the system to «replace» American workers with lower-paid foreign employees, calling the practice «fraud.»
«Our message to Microsoft is: you are a great American company, but you have to hire excellent American workers. You cannot fire American workers and then replace them with foreign workers in precarious conditions,» the vice president stated.
The H-1B visa allows U.S. companies to temporarily hire foreign workers in occupations that require highly specialized knowledge.
Since returning to office, Trump has sought to restrict the program and attempted to impose a $100,000 fee for this type of visa, a measure that was blocked by the courts.
Tech companies have warned that restrictions on H-1B visas increase the cost of hiring foreign professionals and could hurt U.S. competitiveness and innovation.
In Microsoft's case, Vance said the company had «displaced» 6,000 American workers while obtaining a comparable number of H-1B visas.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling added that his department will also block firms such as Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini from accessing the program.
