Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that the Trump administration has blocked Microsoft, Adobe, and six other IT outsourcing firms from using the U.S. Department of Labor’s green card program, citing alleged fraud, misuse of H-1B and J-1 visas, and the displacement of American workers.
The suspension bars these companies from submitting new applications to the Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM), or having pending applications processed. The ban will remain in place “as long as it needs to be,” Vance said.
The vice president also announced federal investigations into nine universities—Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT—for visa fraud and undercutting American citizens.
“These universities are employing J-1 visas for federally funded grants at a rate of about 61 percent,” said Vance. “The national average is 38 percent. So something weird is going on at these universities!”
Vance, flanked by Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Keith Sonderling, DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito, Attorney General Todd Blanche, senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and Anti-Fraud Task Force Vice Chair Andrew Ferguson, made the announcements during a press conference at the White House, Thursday.
PERM is a mandatory first step for most employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers for employment-based green cards.
In addition to Microsoft and Adobe, the administration ha suspended Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini from using the program.
“Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers,” said Sonderling. “They’ve received over 230,000 H1B visas approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications—”That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers!”
The vice president specifically called out Microsoft for laying off 6,000 US workers, while hiring 6,300 foreign workers with H1-B visas.
“This is a fundamental insult to the American worker and to the American way of life,” said Vance. We cannot allow visa programs that were designed to ensure that American corporations had access to the best and the brightest, to use them to undercut the wages of American workers!”
The VP clarified that the policy is not meant to bar people like Elon Musk from coming into the country, “but if you’re bringing in an accountant who’s making $40,000 a year and you use that foreign indentured servant making to replace an American worker who was making $70,000 a year, you’re not bringing in a genius to build a great American corporation. You’re committing fraud!”
He added that “no company has abused this more than Microsoft.”
H-1B visas allow U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations, generally requiring at least a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. J-1 visas are issued to exchange visitors approved for work- and study-based programs in the United States.
Vance said he would support eliminating the H-1B program entirely, calling it “completely broken,” while acknowledging that the government must protect American workers as long as the program remains in place.
Miller told reporters that companies been abusing the visa programs to exploit low skill foreign workers.
“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 a vastly lower pay,” he explained. “Historic volumes of food stamp fraud, daycare fraud, Medicaid fraud, health care fraud, Social Security fraud. Every kind of fraud you can imagine that steals from and betrays American families!”
Miller stated the abuse amounts to “systemic immigration fraud that violates the laws and statutes of the United States to undercut American workers and labor.”
Vance said the nine universities under investigation have been using the J-1 visas “way too much.”
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“They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers. And it simply has to stop,” he said.
DOL Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito emphasized the extent of the J-1 visa abuse among the targeted universities and made clear he intended to put a stop to it.
“Approximately 61 percent postdoctoral researchers and federally funded workers at these institutions are foreign nationals,” he explained, adding that “subpoenas have been served” to the nine universities.
“Any university that commits this BS needs to not only be targeted but cut off from the program and defunded,” D’Esposito stated. “These schools sit on billions in endowments and still take our tax dollars, then hand those research jobs to cheaper foreign labor,” he continued. “American students are getting squeezed out of their own country’s labs!”
D’Esposito stressed that the Ivory Tower is no longer immune to public scrutiny.
“I will personally handcuff you in the university square!” he declared. “I spent a career as a NYPD detective—I did not back down then, and I sure as hell will not back down now. I don’t care how prestigious a university thinks it is! I don’t care how large your endowment is, how powerful your alumni are, or how many politicians you have on speed dial.”
Andrew Ferguson, the anti-fraud task force chair, emphasized the Trump administration’s “America First” philosophy.
“America is not a jobs program for the rest of the world,” said Ferguson. “We didn’t build our institutions for the rest of the world. We built them for Americans.”
He praised Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Andrea Lucas for addressing issues previous EEOCs “refused to touch,” including protecting white American men from discrimination, and protecting American citizens from national origin discrimination.
“She has led the EEOC headlong to defend Americans from these abusive practices,” Ferguson said, calling her the greatest EEOC chairman since Clarence Thomas in the 1980s.
The vice president discouraged foreigners from coming to the United States to take advantage of “our very generous welfare system.”
“If your purpose in coming to the United States of America is to cash a check from our generous welfare program, then you’re not going to enrich the United States of America and we would prefer that you do not come here,” he said.
When asked to comment on Socialism is, Vance noted that it is a hard term to define because it keeps mutating.
“Classically, you would think socialism is about prioritizing workers, and yet in reality, I guarantee that most of the self-described socialists running across the United States of America are going to howl about this announcement today, which is prioritizing American workers over foreign workers,” he said. “I think in reality what it actually means in the American context is that you want to replace American workers with foreign workers, and you want boys to play in girls sports,” Vance added.
The VP went on to slam socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for opposing open borders ten years ago because it provided cheap labor, but attacking President Trump now for closing the border to protect American workers.
“It is ironic that so many of the self-described socialists running across this country, they love the idea of replacing American workers with foreign workers,” Vance said. “[For them], it’s not about the working class. It’s about their hatred of native-born citizens!”
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