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Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program

alephnerd

Comments (1028)

  • pontus
    Vance said “They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants”My understanding is that this is pretty much how everyone does it, no? Not to say that I'm surprised that they're applying this argument asymmetrically to their allies vs. foes, of course, nor to say that I necessarily agree / disagree with this tactic.
  • throwaway7783
    Microsoft -https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/microsoft-corporation-ew2...Wipro - https://h1bgrader.com/h1b-sponsors/wipro-limited-l9k5mz3r21/...I picked two examples to show the disparity. I do like where this is going, but as it frequently happens, it feels like a weapon than can be wielded selectively.A law should handle fraud across all abusers.
  • sharmajai
  • stephen_cagle
    It's always seemed odd to me that your employer somehow sponsors your Green Card. It always felt like it should simply be a measure ofA) How long you have been working as an H1B in the united states (say 10 years).B) How much you have paid in taxes (say 1 million).Whenever either of the above has occured, you take some citizenship test, and then you have a green card. Nothing to do with your employer dangling something for you, literally a measure of your employment history and/or taxable income.
  • spprashant
    The US will do anything but have a sane worker visa program, with clear path to citizenship. The lottery system is built to be gamed and so is the performative local "hiring" attempts.On the flip side it always surprises me how rabid HN can be about throwing out H1B workers. I am sure some of the people who you may have come across were not deserving of it, but a large amount of them work hard to come here and setup roots. Cancelling visas or deporting them will not get American workers their jobs back. Please spare a moment to consider the pain and anguish it brings to families.> with clear path to citizenship.Or no path at all. Tying the citizenship carrot to the visa and letting the employers hold the stick is the worst of all possible outcomes.
  • exabrial
    I know the administration is controversial, but this is the correct thing to do for a lot of reasons.The biggest one is the program itself is racist as hell. Microsoft is literally bringing in foreigners, paying them much less to do the same damn job.
  • sashank_1509
    Take this problem : “cheap outsourcing of simple coding work”, and replace outsourcing with AI, which will be far cheaper, much faster and much more compliant than any human being, and you can just imagine the disastrous situation we’re sleepwalking into.To all the idiots who claim AI will create new jobs, will only change the work humans do, why didn’t that apply to Indian outsourcing?As someone who uses Opus 5.5 daily, I feel like this admin is trying to put out a small fire, while completely blind to the all encompassing forest fire just around the corner.
  • waltbosz
    I was thinking about this the other day in the context of the boardwalk town that I vacation in sometimes. There are a lot of college student aged workers who come from Europe for the summer and work in every service industry job imaginable in town. There are agencies that find these European workers and help them find jobs and housing.It makes me wonder why there aren't more American young adults taking these jobs. I think it would be great fun to live at the beach for the summer. Maybe the wages are too low, or American kids are focused on internships? Or maybe the European workers are better employees? I don't know.
  • tejtm
    Making political hay now that AI is expected to suffice.I did not start out this jaded.
  • bluegreen10294
    Maybe I’m in the minority here, but do we want to win talent war or not?We should be thrilled to be attracting talent from other countries. Most countries do not have this luxury.Bring smarter, qualified people to the US. If not, they’ll find a way somewhere else
  • coffeecoders
    I know this is a much popular opinion now. But I can't help and ask this again:If a company hires an engineer in India, instead of Seattle, how does America (and workers) benefit? Software doesn't require factories, or supply chains, its just a hiring decision.The question is whether these restrictions increase American employment or just accelerate the exodus of jobs while making the US a less attractive place for talented people.
  • wrxd
    You know who doesn't need visas? Remote workers
  • thordenmark
    One of the few things this administration has done that I actually applaud. These huge corporations have been abusing the Greencard and H1B system for decades, and it has gotten so out of control that people are really starting to notice. This is the kind of thing that can cause serious civil unrest, and justifiably so.The problem is, no matter how carefully the regulations are worded, dirty lawyers will figure out how to work around them. Suspending the programs is probably the only fix at this point.
  • aschla
    A lot of the focus is the effect on pay, but some of the attention should also be spent on competence. There are individuals going through master's degree programs, which are essentially degree mills, to get hired at one of these (or similar) companies, who do not have the basic skills to do the job.Not everyone, but a significant number, and if you've ever worked with one of these individuals, you know how demoralizing and frustrating it can be. Especially in the typical political climate in a tech company, where saying something even slightly related to immigration will get taken a certain way.
  • freeone3000
    Microsoft is a global employer. This suspension means the job hires will be “in” India, or Canada, or Poland, or Japan, until the policy changes again. It’s not as significant as anyone would hope.
  • seshagiric
    Is a person applying for roles at Msft more likely to use Google search or LinkedIn to find the openings or read a newspaper?
  • keeda
    Many comments here claiming immigrant tech workers undercut native workers, yet somehow in the software industry, where H1B has been the most widely used, unemployment rate has historically consistently been much lower than the overall unemployment rate, and the wages have been higher (and growing faster) then average wages.Like 25% - 40% lower unemployment and 60% - 100% higher wages. Even during the dot-com bust software was much better off! It's right there in the BLS data (though a bit hairy to slice and dice due to how they categorize jobs.)The "immigrants displace native worker" narrative is too simplistic. Consider maybe that without those workers the work simply does not get done.I mean, we've all lived through this. How many people here, for most of their careers, did NOT have mountains of backlog they would like to clear out if only they had more headcount? How many have NOT spent days on quarterly planning because of the need to be extremely judicious about what you put on your roadmap? And how many have not bemoaned, oftern right here on HN, how hard it is to find people who can actually code?It's not just you, this dynamic plays out all over the place, and puts real constraints on the expansion potential of companies, which reduces future hiring all around. There are studies on this. Yes, there is naturally some downward wage pressure on local employees due to a larger pool, but on the whole the expansion and faster growth of companies, and hence the overall economy, more than compensates for this.Feel free to ask your favorite AI for more... You know, the thing actually taking our jerbs! ;-)
  • ramijames
    Microsoft isn't the biggest user of this program, Amazon is: https://miserablyunemployed.com/market/h1b
  • thih9
    I wonder if MS is going to start hiring for more remote (global) roles as a result.
  • mvc
    I'm always reading about how much of a meritocracy these tech places are. And that the US is a bastion of free market enterprise compared to backwaters like the UK.So if this was really true, how come there aren't AI recruiters who scan the supposedly obscure newspapers for job ads like these and bring them to their clients and make a fat commission when their (clearly superior US based candidate :lol:) demonstrates throughout the interview process that they are capable of doing the job.
  • niemandhier
    Teams are international already. Why do they bring people to the US at all?A nice office in Bukarest or Krakow or if you really need Munich or Zürich is good enough for most Europeans. I am sure there are equally nice places in Asia.
  • cricketsandmops
    An HR recruiter at an old job told me that they would post a job they preferred or only had budget for a h1b that they would post to obscure job boards and post the job on college campuses that they knew would not get many views. However they posted it met the legal definition to get what they wanted.
  • mococa
    Remote worker FTW!
  • thraway3837
    Honest question and I'm probably going to ruffle a lot of feelings:In the age of AI coding, what is the point of outsourcing your programming to TCS, Wipro, et al? These consultancies are not building groundbreaking innovative stuff, they're building the drudgery enterprise software to handle taxes or business intelligence tools. Things that are perfect for AI (don't get me wrong, AI is perfect for a lot of other types of coding too).Or is it that outsourcing is cheaper than AI tokens?
  • dec0dedab0de
    Over a decade ago someone on here commented that H1B1 visas should goto the highest paying jobs requested instead of random or whatever it was.At the time we all saw the H1B1 program as a way for companies to hire cheaper labor that they can treat poorly.
  • blints
    The entire program is a farce. It's the process generating the fraudulent "golly, we just can't find a US citizen for the job" claims, complete with fake ads designed to be undiscoverable.
  • connorboyle
    It's really bizarre to hear admin officials talk about H-1(b) workers as "indentured servants" but not ever mention or touch the L-1 visa program.It is over-the-top hysteria either way, but it is at least actually true of the L-1 program that you cannot change employers (at least without first getting a change-of-status to another visa). H-1(b) workers can and do change employers all the time.
  • xvxvx
    I’m quite shocked that this was even open to abuse to begin with. Clearly, the US has very strict immigration and green card laws. So enforcement has been lax? Or were deals made under the table with these companies and previous administrations?
  • hirako2000
    The irony that the U.S is a relatively very young nation that was built then thrived entirely based on immigration.
  • lalitowey
    Microsoft is declared fraudulent but not Tesla, one of the leading H1B visa companies? Seems they just want to label it as fraud but not actually investigate any fraudulent activity, they want that $.
  • falsemyrmidon
    Crazy that they hit MS for this and not Amazon
  • Jsebast24
    The millenial day-care raised generation behaved like they were owed everything. Three months in the job and they wanted a raise. Wanted to work a few hours a week, but get paid full time. Moved from job to job as soon as they were trained and someone offered a couple thousand more. Wanted to work from home in their pajamas all day, refusing to come back to the office. And if the company signed a contract with a politically wrong customer, they refused to work. Do all of you understand now why they were replaced with H1-B visas?
  • MisterMunchkin
    Almost all of the graduates hired by my company are migrants, and they then chain migrate other people over by putting in referrals for random people.From the company’s perspective it is great, you can pay them less and artificially suppress wages.From society’s perspective… well 30% of young people are unemployed despite record low numbers of young people. No births and no jobs! It’s genius!
  • LargeKakapo
    Cynically I believe this is just blackmail for midterms.The current administration will promise to Microsoft (and others) that they’ll reverse this decision as long as they are provided proper funding/support.
  • cush
    They're suspending the PERM process for H1-Bs but are they suspending microsoft from filing for new H-1Bs? It's my understanding the wait list for Indian workers to get a green card is like 100 years, so what difference would it make anyways?
  • larodi
    Curious nobody sees this as retaliation for Bill Gates very firm stance against AI. Even though he’s not running anything at MS is not a random blogger stating bold stuff.
  • throwaway85825
    Any company that does layoffs should immediately have all their visas revoked as well as all of their contractors.
  • xyst
    Seems Microsoft forgot to deposit their "contribution" into this administrations slush fund.
  • dsmark
    So many other top firms committing this kind abuse.
  • zkmon
    Why did it took decades to see this simple H1-B industry practices thriving in glory? The post-grad visa machine, core practices of consulting companies, salary differences etc?Once you have hard-working foreign workers available for less salary, it is highly natural a huge industry would come up and work hard to make gains of the worker supply chain. Elementary, Uncle Sam.
  • largbae
    Is the new visa lottery suspended for these companies or just the green card permanent residence part? If the latter, what becomes of the current H1-B visa holders?
  • hippycruncher22
    Good, the market is dropping. Now add a tax to American corporations that outsource. Then you can fix h1b etc
  • dsmark
    Other large companies are massively abusing the employee sponsored green cards too.
  • achow
    There are atleast seven other companies and not MS alone..Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobehttps://www.thehindu.com/news/international/ussuspends-micro...
  • gargs
    Tactics that were mentioned to be used by Microsoft are unheard of in Europe. I wonder how much of perceived American tech superiority is based off of plain immigration fraud. Would the people that hammer Europe about regulation be ready to only hire bonafide equally-paid people?
  • cyanydeez
    Can you imagine discussing this rationally when you know it's being done be a kleptocratic government?Man, people are so easily deceaved because it some how aligns with their favored prejudice.
  • palmotea
    1. Non-paywalled dup: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50006948> Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling added that some of the largest IT firms in the world would also be suspended from that program, including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.> "We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies," Sonderling said.2. I'm kinda surprised those firms were even trying to get green cards for their employees. I thought their whole model was to rotate offshore people into the US for temporary assignments on H1-Bs.> Under the PERM process, employers seek certification from the Department of Labor that there is no qualified, willing or available US worker for a specific job. It's a step required before filing petitions for most employment-based green cards.3. That was always kinda bullshit and was unfair to everyone. You've got some guy who's settled, been working for years, made friends, etc. then you check that there's no US qualified worker? That check should have always been the first step of an H1-B. Delaying it actually made me pretty sympathetic to the attempts to game the system to prevent and American from getting the job. Even if H1-Bs were technically for temporary workers, everyone saw them as a step on the way to permanent residency.4. So have they done anything about offshoring yet? Because focusing on H1-Bs and green cards is focusing on the problems of 20+ years ago.It's probably been 15 years since my employer sponsored any significant numbers of employees for H1-Bs, it's all offshore hiring in Asia to company offices in Asia now.
  • joshcsimmons
    This means that they could shut down the H-1B program today. Every day they choose to keep importing foreign labor they harm the American worker.
  • fggffggf
    As an Indian in tech in India, I feel bad for the people affected.From a policy perspective though, India should probably consider providing incentives for American companies that move workers and data centers to India. This is probably a great time to do it. GCC growth has been generally resilient despite the impact of AI.If your competitor is determined to shoot themselves in the foot. Just hand them the pistol and step back!
  • bubblethink
    I doubt this can save the midterms.
  • reply00r123
    These companies are not going to need all the middle talent, or lower tier talent. Its a slap on the wrist for a wrist that isnt even there anymore.
  • QGQBGdeZREunxLe
    PERM certification it looks like
  • prometheus1992
    so these are just indian companies and microsoft which is lead by an indian guy? is the government signaling something here? i know amazon, meta, google are all doing the same thing- but amazon and meta are licking the ass.giving the same excuse of "oh these companies post jobs where they are not seen" is the lamest excuse you can give. are you saying this government is so poor and incompetent that it cannot verify where the job was posted? how many people saw the jobs, how many clicked and applied?? are you really saying that the most power country, with SI is not able to do this basic check??
  • connorboyle
    > Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said it looks forward to “providing the Administration with additional information.” Of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, the company said 80% were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.”> “These were not to hire new people,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country.”H-1(b) critics often (ignorantly or dishonestly) compare visa petition numbers to layoff numbers (essentially a stock vs. a flow), so it is nice to see this addressed by the company and in the article.I suspect the H-1(b) program is the subject of so much scrutiny (instead of L-1, O-1, or OPT) specifically because every employer has to report the number of H-1(b) petitions they make each year.
  • theahura
    most of the comments are about the h1b rules, but can we also talk about this?> The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practical Training program, known as OPT, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.Absolutely insane. Nothing infuriates me quite like this administration’s consistent willingness to absolutely destroy the engine of progress that has led to American greatness over the last century. I know so many people who are in this country doing fantastic work, who later got O1 visas or green cards, because they were able to do OPT.
  • garbawarb
    Is there a full list of companies?
  • jimmydoe
    a move to satisfy nationalist and ai hater at same time.I don't like nationalism, but I see no way out of it.
  • guywithahat
    > “They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft.”> ... Microsoft last year laid off 6,000 American workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.I'm glad someone is finally taking this more seriously. There are a lot of big tech teams where you can't even get a job there unless you're Indian. H1B's should be for unique, foreign talent, not senior software engineers.
  • grey-area
    Gangster capitalism.
  • shevy-java
    This is interesting because it means that the ultra-right agenda and ideology of Trump (or rather, the whole network behind him - see how the prepare the eyeliner-boy to seize power once Trump loses elections), is bigger than individual bromance-corporation connections, such as Microsoft can effect on a smaller level.On the big level they are all still in cahoots of corruption, but on a smaller scale the ideology is still in place and overrides some of the corruption in place.
  • etchalon
    It's frustrating that my first thought, with this administration, even when they do something objectively defensible, even good, is "OK, so what bribe did Microsoft refuse to pay?"
  • gen2brain
    Dey took er jerbs!
  • tpict
    What are the perceived methods of fraud in the PERM process?
  • yieldcrv
    We have many visa programsThe section H, subsection 1, subsection B visa program has standards of review from the late 1980s. They should all be updated to 2026, inflation adjusted for base salary or compensation expectations, as well as notice requirementsIf the administering of it doesn't require Congress to do, then that's fine, I hope the Democrats keep this going if they wind up being in control of appointments and oversight after midterms
  • artyom
    I understand this is a politically charged topic, and every comment is going to be a flame war nonetheless, so here we go.No matter your political inclination, overabusing green cards to import cheap labor in detriment of the American wage is not even a secret: everybody does it. So the claim is, at least, correct in its formulation.However:- It doesn't include Amazon, the biggest offender by far?- Suspends green cards but not H1Bs? so what the point is exactly? replacing cheap labor, for a potential revolving door of cheap labor? make sure cheap labor is never guaranteed to stay, so they don't dare to think about not being cheap anymore?- People really thought that Microsoft was different to Tata in methodology and discipline? Did you really have to interact with people in either company? I did, and let me tell you, "highly skilled" or even "skilled at all" is nothing short of an exaggeration.
  • nice_byte
    Tata and Infosys too apparently, which is actually good. Those were the real abusers of the h1b program.
  • knodi
    Party of free market
  • 123487-182
    So they are repeating the false promises until the midterms are over, just like they did before the 2024 presidential election.This is just what MAGA wants to hear so they drag themselves to the voting booth despite having been betrayed on:- isolationism- controlling inflation- no more foreign wars- pro worker policies- full Epstein releases, including intelligence operations
  • threecheese
    All sorts of good and interesting arguments ITT, but at the end of the day it's all academic; companies are going to compensate by offshoring. I doubt this nets us more citizen-jobs, pressures salaries to increase, or provides any benefit other than the messaging to the base.
  • dayyan
    A good step in the right direction. What I voted for.
  • la6479
    GCCs
  • bradlys
    Aren't a lot of these companies with H1Bs not sponsoring the green card anyway for some reason? I wonder if this will be the first of many. I always found it weird that the company could choose to not sponsor the green card but could employ you via H1B. I always wondered why anyone would work for such an employer long term.I think the path to green card part is actually good. It's the H1B aspect that I find problematic. Once a person is no longer tied to an employer (e.g. via having a green card) then they're in a better position to negotiate wages and less of an indentured servant. That should happen as quickly as possible but we shouldn't be letting almost anyone in via an H1B.In some sense - this is "directionally correct" but it should be cutting off letting them use the H1B program itself. I don't know why they didn't do that but maybe there's some legalese reason.I find it weird that people in this tech sphere are so pro-immigration when you can clearly see that our wages have gone down over the last 5-8 years and immigration has been relentless in this sector. Yes, if you've stuck with one company for that entire time then you've likely seen great appreciation in your ISOs or RSUs but if you're looking for a new offer... It's the same $400k/yr for a senior engineer but cost of living is up, inflation is way up, etc. You should be seeing wages at $500k/yr to keep up with inflation alone but that's not happening. It's still $400k/yr.
  • OrvalWintermute
    We need clawbacks from these companies’ c suites, present and past, that were awarded compensation based on criminal practices
  • LarsDu88
    It won't do shit b/c Microsoft can just hire subcontractors to pull off the same shit with even less stable pay.
  • Simulacra
    This sill last about .. 4 days, 2 weeks at most, before a federal district judge puts an injunction on it.
  • carefree-bob
    My two cents:Private Businesses should not be able to offer citizenship as a side payment to their employees, they should stick to offering cash. If you are the french foreign legion and you want to reward military recruits with citizenship, then at least it's a government that is receiving the benefit and selling the citizenship, but private business should not be able to sell citizenship, or an easier way to get citizenship, to anyone. It's not a resource that belongs to them.
  • midnitewarrior
    If the talent can't come to Microsoft, Microsoft will offshore near the talent.
  • stego-tech
    The language is confusing for folks who haven’t experienced or researched the US immigration scheme. A few terms first:* H1B visas are work permits issued to foreign-born workers sponsored by a company to work in the USA. These visas are bound to a specific employer with limited ability to transfer elsewhere, and on their own have ZERO ability to convert to a Green Card* Green Card is Legal Permanent Residency (LPR), the first real step towards Naturalization. It lets you live and work anywhere in the USA, provided you generally contribute more than you receive in benefits (though this is very fungible depending on political incentives). Obtaining a Green Card is incredibly hard to do outside of family, with employer sponsorship being one of the few other viable routes.So what seems to be happening here is that the regime wants to block Microsoft et al for applying for Green Cards for workers currently on H1B visas - not unheard of, but a rarity among the hordes of H1Bs employed yearly by technical firms. I suspect the goal is to discourage workers abroad from applying for H1Bs since employer green card sponsorship is off the table, but it won’t necessarily stop green cards via other routes (like marriage). It also doesn’t address the real grievances around H1Bs themselves, like how it coerces labor into taking more toxic or abusive working environments and lower wages while also robbing domestic workers of opportunities.In other words, and assuming I’m understanding this messaging correctly (a big if), this is a nothingburger. It doesn’t stop H1B abuse, it doesn’t help American workers, and it punishes the handful of folks who deserve the Green Card conversion from their employers. It’s a packet of lies and misdirection meant to look bigger than it actually is.
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  • SwellJoe
    Didn't Satya Nadella give $3.5 million to various Trump grifts? Gotta hate when a mobster doesn't stay bought.
  • snapetom
    Great. Now do H4, PERM, and OPT next. Close all the loopholes. Numberwise H4 is 4x bigger than H1B.H1B is a lamb big tech is willing to sacrifice to satisfy the populists. You want real change, get rid of the rest.
  • sxp
    Note that this appears to be about green cards/permanent residency rather than h1b. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said other companies that would be suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification Program included Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., Infosys Ltd., Tata, Wipro Ltd., HCL Technologies Ltd., and Capgemini SE. He said there were multiple active federal investigations ongoing into the matter.
  • everyone
    What do ya'll think about the conjecture that the elites in the USA want to destroy the actual economy while keeping their world of financial bullshit going?The current K shaped economy being just the beginning. The elites realised that making more money wont change much for them, but they can make everyone else poor and then live as feudal lords.
  • russellbeattie
    In a normal world, I would praise the government for taking a action to address issues with a program that has definitely been abused by major tech companies for a long time.However, it's really hard to separate the message from the messenger here.Beyond the fact that this is obviously a political stunt designed to make headlines just a few weeks before the mid-term elections, there is little reason to believe that this is being done in good faith targeting the worst offenders. The people who have been chosen to run the federal government are simply corrupt sociopaths who will do anything to promote their extreme ideological agenda and are not to be trusted in any way.Until proven otherwise, I have to assume this effort has to do with kickbacks or political retribution mixed with blatant racism, rather than for any sort of public benefit. I doubt this will result in anything besides a larger donation to the Republican party - or direct payments to Trump family members - by the affected companies.
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    https://archive.ph/5B8mZnot much in there beyond the headline but quotes from the admin
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  • peter422
    That’s what they get for not donating enough to MAGA IncFor my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law
  • pc86
    In the best case we could hope this will lead to increased wages to American citizens, but realistically I think the most likely impact is it pisses a lot of people off, causes a lot of headaches for a lot of people, and has no real impact for most.Edit: Would love to hear a coherent argument as to why my comment is off topic and deserving of downvotes but I'm sure that won't happen.