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The Trump administration on Thursday suspended more than a half-dozen tech companies, including Microsoft, from the program that allows permanent hiring of foreign workers — escalating its long-simmering clash with the tech industry over immigration.
“The H1-B visa program is meant to allow companies to bring in really the best of the best from outside the United States of America for positions that are completely impossible to fill with American workers,” Vice President JD Vance, who helms the administration’s fraud task force, told reporters. “Unfortunately, the program has become rife with fraud.”
The administration has tangled with tech companies since President Donald Trump returned to office over its interest in reining in H1-B visas for highly skilled workers.
That tension has resulted in a partial pullback of some attempted policy shifts, such as May’s clarification of an announcement that H1-B holders would have to start applying for permanent residency from outside the US.
The administration has also recently moved to charge more than $100,000 for a single H1-B visa.
Thursday’s announcement formally bans Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, and four other companies from the permanent labor certification process. Representatives for Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, and Infosys did not immediately return requests for comment.
Notably, Trump plans to award a medal to the CEO of Microsoft later on Thursday.
In addition, the administration announced it had served subpoenas for a new investigation into multiple universities over their use of J-1 visas for exchange students. Among the educational institutions targeted by the probe are Pitt, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT, officials said at a press conference.
“We will investigate whether foreign influence, improper financial relationships, or visa abuse are compromising federally funded research,” said the Labor Department’s inspector general, former Republican member of Congress Anthony D’Esposito.
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Foreign workers made up almost a quarter of the US’ STEM workforce in 2023, according to the American Immigration Council. Businesses, which challenged the proposed H1-B fee in court, say they need visas to overcome worker shortages that stem in part from lagging workforce development.
Thursday’s announcement marks a continuation of Vance’s focus on fraud heading into the midterms and 2028. The vice president has portrayed the issue as bipartisan — though Trump, when he announced the task force earlier this year, suggested it would focus “primarily” in blue states.
Asked Thursday to explain his allegations of visa fraud, Vance pointed to “a couple of certifications” companies must make to receive the visas, including “that the person that you’re bringing in has a specialized, hyper-capable skill set.”
“That’s clearly not the case if you’re just replacing one American worker with a foreign indentured servant and undercutting their wages in the process,” Vance said. “So the fraud is that they’re making representations when applying for this program that are fundamentally illegitimate and therefore ultimately illegal.”
Notable
- Vance declined to directly address a Wall Street Journal report that US Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle requested a donor pay off debt in exchange for access to government officials, though he told reporters he doesn’t “love that.”