President Donald Trump’s administration is targeting tech giant Microsoft, suspending the company from a program to apply for green cards for workers who come to the United States to live and work using an H-1B visa.
In a Thursday morning White House press conference, attended by The Center Square, Vice President JD Vance accused Microsoft of committing 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,” said Vance.
Vance said Microsoft last year laid off about 6,000 American workers. At the same time, the company benefited from 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards, he added.
“That is a scandalous system that we’ve allowed in this country for far too long, but thanks to the work of this task force, and thanks to the empowerment of the President of the United States, we’re going to stop it.”
The H-1B program has been a target of Trump supporters with many arguing the program underbids American workers for the benefit of corporations.
H-1B visas are a non-immigrant U.S. work visa that allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign workers in occupations that require specialized knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or higher.
“Our message to Microsoft and to any other foreign or domestic corporation is quite simple. We obviously want you to thrive in the United States of America. We want people to invest in the United States of America, particularly the American technology sector,” Vance said.
“We want you to continue to grow and to employ a lot of people. But we want you to employ American workers. You cannot lay off American workers, and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”
The vice president elaborated on the “indentured servants” term.
“When somebody comes in on an H-1B, they’re completely subordinate to that company. If they lose that job, they have to leave the country… you bring people in, and you basically tell them that if they get out of line, if they get too uppity at work, they’re not just gonna lose their job, but they’re gonna be deported back to their country of residence,” said Vance.
He said that Microsoft and other companies benefiting from the H-1B Visa program are paying those foreign workers much less than American workers.
“If you are working as an H-1B visa in the United States of America, you’re earning $20,000 less than an American citizen hired in the same position. If you were brought in by one of these foreign outsourcing terms, you’re making $48,000 less than an American citizen in a similar position.”
Other tech companies are also being suspended from the H-1 B Visa program.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling said IT outsourcing firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini are all suspended from the program as of Thursday, while the administration continues investigating.
Microsoft released a statement regarding the suspension on Thursday.
“We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce. That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans,” the statement said.
“We look forward to providing the Administration with additional information. For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees. These were not to hire new people.”
“The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country.”
“Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category. We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work.”