Trump admin bars Microsoft and other tech companies from seeking permanent residency for foreign workers

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The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft and some other companies from seeking permanent residency for foreign workers hired through the H-1B visa program, accusing them of taking advantage of the process so that they could replace American citizens with cheaper labor from abroad.

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that the tech giant is one of a handful of companies to be barred indefinitely from the Labor Department’s PERM program following an investigation spearheaded by the anti-fraud task force that he chairs.

That probe determined that Microsoft laid off roughly 6,000 American workers last year, while at the same time employing 6,300 non-citizens that it had brought to the US by obtaining H-1B visas for them.

“The H-1B visa is how the people get into the United States in the first place, and then a PERM program is how those employees stay,” Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft.”

Vance and other top administration officials alleged that Microsoft had misrepresented its needs in applying for permanent residency for its foreign workers, arguing that the program is meant only for workers with “hyper-specialized” skill sets that can’t be easily found in the US.

Instead, they accused the company of using the program primarily to replace skilled American employees with similarly qualified immigrants who it could pay less to do the same job.

“The fraud is that they’re making representations when applying for this program that are fundamentally illegitimate and therefore ultimately illegal,” Vance said.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But the announcement raised immediate questions about the timing of the administration’s targeting of Microsoft. In a separate ceremony on Thursday, President Donald Trump is due to award Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

The medal is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement and is awarded to those who make “outstanding contributions to America’s economic, environmental and social well-being,” according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Vance downplayed the administration’s decision to punish Microsoft over accusations of fraud on the same day that it hailed the company’s achievements.

“Our message to Microsoft is not that we want to harm your company, it’s that we want your company to thrive, but we want it to thrive by employing and empowering your fellow Americans,” he said. “So we’re going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we’re also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first.”

The Labor Department is also indefinitely suspending software firm Adobe and several IT outsourcing firms from the PERM program, meaning that any new or pending requests for permanent residency for their workers will not be considered.

Vance did not lay out any specific steps for the companies to regain access to the process, saying only that it wanted Microsoft and others to “change their behavior, improve their behavior and actually get better.”

The move marks the Trump administration’s latest attempt to show it’s cracking down on instances of government “fraud” ahead of the midterm elections, framing the issue as critical to ensuring Americans have fair access to job opportunities and federal benefits.

Trump officials on Thursday also announced that they planned to separately investigate several universities over allegations of that they had abused the J-1 visa program, which allows them to bring in foreign nationals as students, researchers or teachers.

Under that program, Vance said, officials believe that schools regularly employ workers from abroad as a way to undercut the salaries that they would otherwise need to pay to Americans in those positions.

The universities under scrutiny are Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; California Institute of Technology; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Arizona State University.

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特朗普政府暂停了微软和其他一些公司为通过 H-1B 签证计划雇佣的外国工人申请永久居留权的资格，指责他们利用这一程序，用来自国外的更廉价的劳动力取代美国公民。

美国副总统 JD Vance 周四表示，这家科技巨头是少数几家被无限期禁止参加劳工部 PERM 计划的公司之一，此前他担任主席的反欺诈工作组牵头进行了一项调查。

调查发现，微软去年解雇了大约 6000 名美国员工，同时雇用了 6300 名非公民，这些非公民是通过获得 H-1B 签证带到美国的。

“H-1B签证是人们进入美国的途径，而PERM项目则是这些员工留在美国的途径，”万斯说。“不幸的是，在美国，没有哪家公司比微软更滥用这个制度。”

万斯和其他高级政府官员声称，微软在为其外国员工申请永久居留权时歪曲了自身需求，他们认为该计划只适用于在美国不易找到的“高度专业化”技能的员工。

相反，他们指责该公司利用该计划主要是为了用资质相当的移民取代技术娴熟的美国员工，因为移民支付的工资更低，却能从事同样的工作。

“欺诈之处在于，他们在申请这个项目时做出了根本上不合法、因而最终违法的陈述，”万斯说。

微软尚未对此事作出回应。

但这一声明立即引发了人们对政府选择此时针对微软的质疑。在周四的另一场仪式上，唐纳德·特朗普总统将向微软首席执行官萨蒂亚·纳德拉颁发国家技术与创新奖章。

据美国专利商标局称，该奖章是美国表彰科技成就的最高荣誉，授予那些“为美国的经济、环境和社会福祉做出杰出贡献”的人。

万斯淡化了政府因欺诈指控而对微软进行处罚的决定，而就在同一天，政府又对微软取得的成就表示赞扬。

“我们想对微软传达的信息并非要损害贵公司，而是希望贵公司蓬勃发展，但我们希望贵公司通过雇用和扶持美国同胞来实现这一目标，”他说道。“因此，我们将继续支持微软，并与微软保持良好的合作关系，但同时，在微软展现出将美国工人放在首位的决心之前，我们将拒绝他们申请永久居留权。”

美国劳工部还无限期暂停了软件公司 Adob​​e 和几家 IT 外包公司参与 PERM 计划，这意味着这些公司员工任何新的或待处理的永久居留权申请都将不予考虑。

Vance 没有列出任何具体的步骤供这些公司重新获得该流程的访问权限，只是表示希望微软和其他公司“改变他们的行为，改进他们的行为，并真正变得更好”。

此举标志着特朗普政府在中期选举前夕，再次试图表明其正在严厉打击政府“欺诈”行为，并将此问题定性为确保美国人公平获得就业机会和联邦福利的关键所在。

特朗普政府官员周四还宣布，他们计划对几所大学展开单独调查，原因是这些大学被指控滥用 J-1 签证计划，该计划允许他们引进外国公民作为学生、研究人员或教师。

万斯表示，根据该计划，官员们认为学校经常雇用外国工人，以此来降低他们原本需要支付给美国人的工资。

此次接受审查的大学包括：哈佛大学；耶鲁大学；斯坦福大学；布朗大学；匹兹堡大学；加州大学戴维斯分校；加州理工学院；麻省理工学院；以及亚利桑那州立大学。