Trump blocks foreign workers: Microsoft and other technology companies are banned

The White House has banned Microsoft and some other tech firms from permanently hiring skilled international workers through a widely used visa program.

According to the Financial Times, US Vice President JD Vance, in his statement yesterday, accused US technology giant Microsoft and other companies of committing fraud by using the H-1B visa program and the related process for employees coming from abroad to obtain permanent residence permits in the US.

Vance claimed that Microsoft, one of the most valuable companies in the United States, was effectively replacing American workers with "foreign contract workers."

Microsoft noted that most H-1B visa applications filed last fiscal year were for existing employees who earned the same salary as domestic staff.

'THERE IS NO WORSE THAN MICROSOFT!'

"There is no company in the United States that abuses this system more than Microsoft," Vance said. He leveled the same accusations against Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.

The US government will not process new or pending Permanent Work Authorization Program (PERM) applications from Microsoft or seven other companies, US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said at the same conference.

Sonderling said companies like Microsoft and US universities have become "visa factories" and are "flooding" the US with foreign workers.

On the other hand, a spokesperson for Microsoft said in a statement to the BBC, "The vast majority of Microsoft employees in the USA are Americans." The company employs more than 200 thousand people worldwide.

Vance claimed that Microsoft laid off approximately 6 thousand workers and applied for 6,800 H-1B visas in the same period.

A Microsoft spokesperson said 80% of the H-1B visa applications the company filed last fiscal year were for people already working at Microsoft, not new hires.