‘Indentured servants’: US green card move will hit thousands of IT workers

The US is suspending top tech firms, including Microsoft, from a key programme to sponsor foreign workers’ green cards.

US Vice President JD Vance at White House news conference on Thursday [Tom Brenner/AP Photo]

The United States government has moved to exclude some of the world’s top tech companies from a programme that allows them to sponsor skilled foreign workers for permanent residency.

Vice President JD Vance said the action was a response to companies abusing the system to hire lower-paid foreign workers at the expense of US workers.

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It comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration continues efforts to clamp down on immigration – both legal and undocumented – and make it harder for immigrants to get residency or citizenship.

But the latest move also potentially impacts thousands of foreign workers, many of whom have spent years waiting for a backlog in applications to clear.

Here’s what to know about the latest policy:

How does the current system work?

The suspension concerns the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme, which enables a US-based employer to sponsor a foreign worker’s green card — as the permanent residency is commonly known. To qualify, the employer is supposed to demonstrate that there are insufficient US workers for a needed job role and that bringing a foreign worker will not impact the pay or conditions of US workers in the industry.

PERM is a key step in the green card process for many skilled foreign workers. Major tech companies often hire workers on temporary visas, such as the H-1B, before they transition to permanent residency through the PERM process.

What have Vance and others said?

Vance on Thursday accused major companies of fraudulently using the current visa regime to displace US employees and bring in lower-paid foreign workers who amount to “indentured servants”.

“The programme has become rife with fraud,” said Vance at a White House news conference. He claimed that many workers who start off on temporary H-1B visas and later apply for permanent residency under the PERM programme are “being mistreated by their employers” and “used to undercut the wages of American workers”.

“You’ve got to hire great American workers,” the US vice president said. “You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”

Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling used similar language, saying the US would “shut down the pipeline of systemic fraud that has flooded our country”.

“The fraud doesn’t end with getting the job,” said Sonderling. “That job becomes a pathway for foreign workers and their families to stay in America permanently and eventually (become) US citizens.”

“And who pays for it all? The American worker,” he said.

US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling speaks to reporters at the White House on Thursday [Alex Wroblewski/AFP]

Which companies are impacted?

Vance singled out Microsoft as a major offender and said it would be suspended from the PERM programme.

Other companies whose PERM applications will no longer be processed include US software firm Adobe and some of the world’s top IT firms, including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. Of these, Capgemini is French, Microsoft and Adobe are American, and the rest — Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL — are all Indian.

“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labour certification applications involving these companies,” said Sonderling.

Vance said the suspensions would continue “as long as it needs to”.

Other companies that rely heavily on H-1B visas such as Meta, Amazon or Alphabet’s Google will not be affected.

Have tech firms been abusing US immigration rules?

Critics of the H-1B visa and PERM green card process argue that some employers use the system not to fill legitimate skills shortages, but to reduce labour costs, gain leverage over workers and make it harder for US employees to compete for jobs. They say companies do this by hiring foreign workers at lower wages and manipulating recruitment conditions to keep out qualified US workers.

Vance said Microsoft last year let go 6,000 US workers, while also securing 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.

“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.

Sonderling said companies being suspended from PERM had received more than 230,000 H-1B visas and over 100,000 permanent labour certifications since 2009.

“That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers,” Sonderling said.

The H1-B visa system has also emerged as a lightning rod for many of the most vocal backers of Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, some of whom have married criticism of the programme with anti-immigrant stereotypes — particularly against Indians — to demand that the scheme be scrapped.

Microsoft disputed the implication that its visa filings represented new hires replacing US workers. In a statement, the company said that 80 percent of the roughly 6,000 H1-B visa applications it issued last year were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees”, not for new employees, and that the other filings were for “individuals already legally in the United States”.

The company also said that it only files applications for people who “meet the rigorous standards of this visa category” and that such employees are paid equally to any others who do similar work.

What does this mean for foreign workers?

The suspension could make it harder for foreign workers in the tech industry to obtain permanent residency in the US. Many of those affected are likely to be Indian nationals, who account for a large share of the country’s skilled foreign workforce in the technology sector.

Each year, there are only 85,000 slots for new H-1B visas (not including filings for renewals), but hundreds of thousands of applications. Many H-1B visa holders work in technology-related jobs: 62 percent of the beneficiaries in the 2025 fiscal year worked in computer-related occupations.

Indian nationals account for roughly 70 percent of existing H-1B visa holders.

The Trump administration has already tried to crack down on the H1-B scheme, and in August proposed a new $103,000 fee for H1-B applications, after an earlier pitch for a similar fee was struck down by a federal court. The fee, the government argues, would help provide revenue that could be used to service the vast US immigration system, while reducing the incentive for companies to attempt to misuse H1-B visas.

But the new move to restrict the pathway to a green card for foreign workers already in the US, legally, could impact not just those who might have dreamed of working or living in the US — but thousands already in the country.

The US typically issues around 140,000 employment-based green cards every year. But it also has a strict country-based cap — applicants from any one country cannot receive more than seven percent of green cards issued in a year.

Yet, because the employment-based green card application system is largely used to convert many H1-B visa holders into permanent residents, applicants for permanent residency are disproportionately Indian.

The result: Nearly one million Indians legally in the US on work visas are currently stuck in the employment-based green card backlog. They represent 79 percent of the total green card backlog of around 1.25 million people.

Even before the latest move, Indian green card applicants in certain employment categories would have needed to wait for decades, according to a 2025 analysis for the Congressional Research Service.

Sonderling’s statement that the US will no longer process “any pending permanent labour certification applications” from the blacklisted companies has raised fears that tens of thousands of foreign workers in the country legally — most of them Indian — who have waited for years might suddenly no longer be eligible. For others, the wait could get even longer.

Has India responded?

Yes. India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying the US’s suspension does not “advance the shared ambitions of both countries”.

The ministry said that “talent mobility adds value” to both the Indian and US economies, including providing US companies “with cutting-edge talent, innovation, research, productivity, competitiveness and job creation”.

The ministry also criticised comments by Vance comparing foreign workers to indentured servants as “unwarranted” and “deeply offensive”, saying his words recalled “painful historical and colonial legacy connotations”.

Colonial powers — the British, Dutch and French — took more than 1.6 million Indian workers as indentured labourers to work on plantations and build railways in their other colonies: in Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana and other Caribbean countries.

India’s foreign ministry said Vance’s descriptions also “ignore the fact that Indian professionals in the United States are highly educated and skilled contributors to its economy and innovation ecosystem”.

美国暂停了包括微软在内的顶级科技公司参与一项为外国工人申请绿卡的关键计划。

美国副总统JD·万斯周四在白宫新闻发布会上 [汤姆·布伦纳/美联社照片]

美国政府已采取行动，将一些世界顶级科技公司排除在一项允许它们担保外国技术工人获得永久居留权的计划之外。

副总裁 JD Vance 表示，此举是为了回应一些公司滥用该制度，以牺牲美国工人的利益为代价雇用低薪外国工人。

（共3条）特朗普在中期选举前夕，在拉美裔选民中的支持率跌至新低（第1条）

美国最高法院同意审理特朗普的移民及海关执法局（ICE）拘留政策（共3项，此为第2项）

列表 3/3：特朗普在支持率创历史新低之际发起中期选举竞选攻势

此前，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普的政府继续努力收紧移民政策——包括合法移民和非法移民——并使移民更难获得居留权或公民身份。

但最新举措也可能影响到数千名外国工人，其中许多人多年来一直在等待积压的申请获得批准。

以下是关于最新政策需要了解的内容：

现行系统是如何运作的？

此次暂停涉及永久劳工证（PERM）项目，该项目允许美国雇主担保外国工人获得绿卡——也就是通常所说的永久居留权。要符合资格，雇主必须证明美国劳动力不足以胜任所需的职位，并且引进外国工人不会影响该行业美国工人的薪酬或工作条件。

对于许多技术娴熟的外国工人来说，PERM是获得绿卡的关键步骤。大型科技公司通常会先聘用持有临时签证（例如H-1B签证）的员工，然后再通过PERM流程让他们获得永久居留权。

Vance和其他人说了些什么？

周四，万斯指责一些大公司利用现行签证制度欺诈性地取代美国员工，并引进工资较低的外国工人，这些工人实际上相当于“契约劳工”。

“该项目已经充斥着欺诈行为，”万斯在白宫新闻发布会上说道。他声称，许多最初持H-1B临时签证、后来通过PERM项目申请永久居留权的工人“受到雇主的虐待”，并且“被用来压低美国工人的工资”。

美国副总统说：“你们必须雇用优秀的美国工人。你们不能解雇美国工人，然后用外国契约劳工来代替他们。”

劳工大臣基思·桑德林也使用了类似的措辞，称美国将“关闭充斥我国的系统性欺诈渠道”。

“欺诈行为并不会随着获得工作而结束，”桑德林说。“这份工作会成为外国工人及其家人永久留在美国并最终（成为）美国公民的途径。”

“而这一切最终由谁来买单？是美国工人，”他说道。

美国劳工部长基思·桑德林周四在白宫向记者发表讲话。[Alex Wroblewski/AFP]

哪些公司会受到影响？

Vance 特别指出微软是主要违规者，并表示将暂停其 PERM 计划资格。

其他一些PERM申请将不再受理的公司包括美国软件公司Adobe以及一些世界顶尖的IT公司，例如Cognizant、Infosys、塔塔咨询服务公司（TCS）、Wipro、HCL Technologies和Capgemini。其中，Capgemini是法国公司，微软和Adobe是美国公司，其余公司——Cognizant、Infosys、TCS、Wipro和HCL——均为印度公司。

“我们将不再受理涉及这些公司的任何新的或待处理的永久劳工认证申请，”Sonderling说道。

范斯表示，停赛将“根据需要继续进行”。

其他严重依赖 H-1B 签证的公司，例如 Meta、亚马逊或 Alphabet 旗下的谷歌，将不会受到影响。

科技公司是否滥用了美国移民法规？

H-1B签证和PERM绿卡申请流程的批评者认为，一些雇主利用这些制度并非为了填补真正的技能短缺，而是为了降低劳动力成本、增强对工人的控制力，并使美国员工更难获得工作机会。他们指出，这些公司通过以更低的工资雇用外国工人，并操纵招聘条件来阻止合格的美国工人获得工作机会。

万斯表示，微软去年解雇了 6000 名美国员工，同时还获得了 6300 个 H-1B 签证和近 3000 张绿卡。

“如果你算一下，就会发现微软每裁掉一名员工，就会用一名半外国契约劳工来代替他，”万斯说。

Sonderling 表示，自 2009 年以来，被暂停 PERM 资格的公司已获得超过 23 万份 H-1B 签证和超过 10 万份永久劳工证。

“这意味着数十万美国工人失去了工作岗位，”桑德林说。

H1-B签证制度也成为了特朗普“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动中许多最积极的支持者的攻击目标，其中一些人将对该计划的批评与反移民刻板印象（特别是针对印度人的刻板印象）结合起来，要求废除该计划。

微软否认其签证申请代表新员工取代美国员工的说法。该公司在一份声明中表示，去年签发的约6000份H1-B签证申请中，80%是“为了延长或变更现有微软员工的身份”，而非针对新员工；其余申请则是针对“已在美国合法居留的个人”。

该公司还表示，它只为“符合该签证类别严格标准”的人提交申请，并且这些员工的薪酬与其他从事类似工作的员工相同。

这对外国劳工意味着什么？

这项暂停措施可能会使科技行业的外国员工更难获得美国永久居留权。受影响的人中很可能包括许多印度公民，他们占美国科技行业技术型外国劳动力的很大一部分。

每年只有85,000个新的H-1B签证名额（不包括续签申请），但却收到数十万份申请。许多H-1B签证持有者从事技术相关工作：在2025财年，62%的受益人从事计算机相关职业。

印度公民约占现有 H-1B 签证持有者的 70%。

特朗普政府此前已试图打击H1-B签证滥用计划，并于8月提议对H1-B签证申请征收10.3万美元的新费用。此前，一项类似的收费提案已被联邦法院驳回。政府辩称，这项费用将有助于增加财政收入，用于维护庞大的美国移民系统，同时降低企业滥用H1-B签证的动机。

但这项限制已在美国合法工作的外国工人获得绿卡途径的新举措，不仅会影响那些梦想在美国工作或生活的人，还会影响成千上万已经在美国的人。

美国通常每年发放约14万张基于就业的绿卡。但它也设有严格的国别配额上限——任何一个国家的申请人获得的绿卡数量都不能超过每年发放总数的7%。

然而，由于以就业为基础的绿卡申请系统主要用于将许多 H1-B 签证持有者转化为永久居民，因此永久居民申请者中印度人的比例过高。

结果是：近一百万持工作签证合法居住在美国的印度人目前被困在基于就业的绿卡申请积压名单中。他们占绿卡申请积压总数（约125万人）的79%。

根据国会研究服务处 2025 年的一项分析，即使在最新举措出台之前，某些就业类别的印度绿卡申请人也需要等待数十年。

桑德林表示，美国将不再受理被列入黑名单的公司提交的“任何待处理的永久劳工证申请”，这引发了人们的担忧：数万名合法在美国工作的外国工人——其中大多数是印度人——可能突然失去资格，他们已经等待多年。而对于其他人来说，等待的时间可能会更长。

印度方面有何回应？

是的。印度外交部发表声明称，美国的暂停行为“不利于两国共同目标的实现”。

该部表示，“人才流动为印度和美国经济增添价值”，包括为美国公司提供“尖端人才、创新、研究、生产力、竞争力和就业机会”。

该部还批评了万斯将外国工人比作契约劳工的言论，称其“毫无根据”且“极具冒犯性”，并表示他的言论让人想起“痛苦的历史和殖民遗产”。

殖民列强——英国、荷兰和法国——将超过 160 万印度工人作为契约劳工带到他们的其他殖民地（马来西亚、毛里求斯、南非、肯尼亚、乌干达、斐济、苏里南、圭亚那和其他加勒比国家）的种植园工作和修建铁路。

印度外交部表示，万斯的描述也“忽略了这样一个事实，即在美国的印度专业人士受过高等教育，技能娴熟，为美国的经济和创新生态系统做出了贡献”。