The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from an employment-based green card program for foreign workers, alleging the technology company fraudulently uses the H-1B visa program to discriminate against Americans.
Vice President JD Vance, who leads the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, announced the suspension, along with an investigation into nine elite universities he alleges are fraudulently hiring foreign graduate students through J-1 visas.
“We cannot allow visa programs that were designed to ensure that American corporations have access to the best of the best to use them to undercut the wages of American workers,” Vance said at an event that also included Attorney General Todd Blanche, Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson.
Vance accused Microsoft of hiring foreign workers and paying them tens of thousands of dollars less than American citizens who do the same jobs. He alleges the company committed fraud by hiring foreign workers who do not meet the H1-B requirement that they be hired for unique, highly specialized occupations.
“In case after case after case, we see individuals who are being brought into the country for skills that are not specialized, that are not unique and that are not skilled,” Vance said, alleging that Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and 3,000 green cards.
“For every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” he said.
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. The permanent labor certification program, or PERM, allows those H-1B employees to stay in the country and receive a green card.
In a statement posted on its blog Thursday, Microsoft said 80% of the 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees and were not for new hires. The rest were for people already legally in the U.S., it added. The company said it looks forward to providing the Trump administration with additional information.
“We believe in the strength and talent of the American workforce,” Microsoft said. “That is why the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans.”
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.
Microsoft succeeds as a global technology leader by developing the world’s best technology workforce. We do this by strengthening this country’s talent pipeline, hiring American workers, and attracting the best talent from around the world.
Microsoft did not respond to Spectrum News’ request for comment about the PERM program suspension before this story was published.
In addition, Sonderling said Thursday that his department is also suspending the information technology outsourcing firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini from the PERM program, along with the software company Adobe.
Adobe did not respond to a request for comment before this story was published.
Sonderling said the Labor Department will not accept any new — or process any pending — labor certification applications involving the eight companies that, he said, had requested almost 3 million foreign workers and received over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and at least 100,000 permanent labor certifications.
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito announced Thursday that his independent oversight body is investigating J-1 visa fraud involving nine universities: the University of Pittsburgh, Yale University, Harvard University, Brown University, Stanford University, the University of California-Davis, the California Institute of Technology, Arizona State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Subpoenas have been served, investigations are underway, and nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” he said. “Improperly used J-1 visa classifications to avoid employment obligations, exploit taxpayer funding programs and undermine American workers will not be tolerated.”
D’Esposito said 61% of post-doctoral researchers and federally funded workers at the nine schools are foreign nationals.
The American Council on Education did not respond to a request for comment before this story was published, nor had Harvard or Yale issued formal public responses to the inspector general’s fraud claims.
The Trump administration’s visa fraud announcements come one day after the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practice Training program, or OPT, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.
Source: spectrumlocalnews.com
