Trump bans Microsoft from sponsoring foreign workers for US residency

The Trump administration has temporarily banned Microsoft, Adobe and several other tech companies from sponsoring workers for permanent US residency, claiming they have abused immigration programmes at the expense of American citizens.

“There has been no company in the US, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” vice-president JD Vance said at a press conference on Thursday.

He claimed over-reliance on visas such as H-1B, used for highly skilled foreign workers, “is a fundamental insult to the American worker and to the American way of life”.

Several other IT outsourcing companies — including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini — were also suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) programme, which allows US employers to hire foreign workers on a permanent basis.

At the same event, the administration announced it had launched a fraud investigation into the use of the J-1 student visas at nine American universities: University of Pittsburgh, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and MIT.

“Subpoenas have been served; investigations are under way and nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” said Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito.

Microsoft and Adobe and other named IT firms did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The announcement marks the latest move in a broad crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration. It has previously taken aim at H-1B visas, which are widely used by tech companies and specialist industries.

Last year, the White House attempted to impose a $100,000 fee on new applications, but the increase was blocked by a federal court.

In June, Judge Leo Sorokin ruled the fee amounted to an unauthorised tax, and infringed on Congress’s authority to raise funds. The Trump administration has appealed against the ruling, which is pending before a federal appeals court.

Before the fee increase, the government charged $215 to register for the H-1B visa lottery and $780 base fee more for employers sponsoring visa applicants. More than 400,000 such visas were approved last year.

The Trump administration is due to honour Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, who will be given the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a separate event on Thursday.

But Vance said there was no contradiction between the two announcements.

“Our message to Microsoft is: ‘You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers’.”