Trump administration goes after Microsoft after Vance says company laid off ‘6,000 American workers’ while securing 6,300 H-1B visas for foreign workers
JD Vance has excluded Microsoft and several tech giants from a key immigration program, citing a bad faith hiring pattern that he says has replaced American workers with foreigners. Then, a few hours later, President Trump presented a medal to the CEO of Microsoft at…
The Associated Press reported the announcement. Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday, October 8, 2026, the administration freeze Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) and several other companies in a Department of Labor program used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. He spoke at a news conference of the administration’s Fraud Task Force at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Attorney General Todd Blanche were also in attendance.
AP News reported that in addition to Microsoft, Vance named Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and six technology consulting companies: Aware (NASDAQ:CTSH), Infosys (NYSE: INFY), Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.
How the Green Card Program Works and What Vance Alleges
Before a company can ask the Department of Labor to sponsor a foreign worker for a green card, the program requires the company to advertise employment in the United States. The goal is to show that no American workers are available. This is the first step toward an employer-sponsored green card. It is separate from H-1B visas, which are temporary, and the suspension applies only to the green card sponsorship program.
JD Vance described how he believes the advertising step is abused: “They’ll put an ad in a small town paper. They’ll go out there and say, ‘We applied for a position at our company and no one’s responding.’ And they will use this lack of response to then replace American workers with what are effectively foreign indentured servants.
The fraud complaint is based on this mechanism. Vance focused his objection on the hiring process. He claims the search for American candidates was conducted in bad faith, and he explained his statement by saying that these workers must leave the country if they lose their jobs and earn less than similarly situated Americans.
Vance’s numbers compared to government data
AP News reported that Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 U.S. workers in the cited year, while securing 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. JD Vance addressed the layoffs. He said that for every laid-off worker, Microsoft brought in “one and a half foreign indentured servants.” He added that “unfortunately, no company in the United States has used this system more than Microsoft.”
AP News has verified this claim. Citing data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, AP News reported that Microsoft ranks fifth among U.S. employers in H-1B usage and Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) ranks #1. This ranking measures H-1B use, while Vance was talking about the green card sponsorship program, and the two don’t exactly align, so the ranking tests its claim without excluding it.
Microsoft response
Microsoft said 80% of the nearly 6,000 H-1B petitions filed in its most recent fiscal year sought to extend or change the status of existing employees. Microsoft said the rest goes to people already legally in the United States, or 1% of its U.S. workforce. “These are not newcomers to our country,” the company said. Microsoft added that it “only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards for this visa category.”
The two sides mean different things. The visa renewal of an engineer who has worked at Microsoft for years appears in the same statistics as a new foreign recruit.
Criticisms from both sides
Doug Rand, a former senior adviser to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, called the announcement “incoherent.” His reasoning: “Once you have a green card, you are no longer dependent on your employer for your immigration status. »
Ron Hira, a professor at Howard University, called the decision “very important.” He pointed to an executive order issued in September 2026 that directs agencies to protect American workers from abuse of the program. Regarding worker protection, he said: “It has never been enforced. »
Universities and visa fees are also targets
AP News reported that Vance named nine universities that he said merited investigation for J-1 visa fraud: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and MIT. Several received subpoenas. Others said they would comply or review the documents.
On October 7, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States, AP News reported. AP News reported that an earlier attempt to increase the H-1B fee to $100,000 was overturned by a federal judge in June. According to AP News, the proposed replacement fee of $103,265 is not yet final and is expected to be the subject of a legal challenge.
Same day White House medal for Microsoft CEO
AP News reported that hours after the announcement, President Donald Trump awarded Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation during a White House event honoring several technology executives.
What is still unknown?
None of the coverage we reviewed identified the legal authority behind the suspension or indicated how long it would last. AP reported that the other companies did not immediately respond to its messages. It is also unclear whether any company will challenge the suspension in court.
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