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.
We have had the ability to recruit the top talent from around the world for generations. And most of that time we’re at full employment. This policy with squander that asymmetric advantage, resulting in less innovation, lower growth, fiercer global competition as the talent starts competing from local markets, lower job growth for American workers. This will get worse over generations because the first gen immigrants in h1b have kids. We will lose out on their future talent.
Is your main source of income investment in unlisted burgeoning tech companies? If not, you're arguing against your own wealth. Foreign labour depreciates the wages companies have to pay for employees. It has been shown again and again that concerning quantities of foreign labour is used exactly for that purpose, with no serious attempt whatsoever to try and get local talent. It doesn't have to be sinister, it's just what HR departments are used to doing again and again.
>We have had the ability to recruit the top talent from around the world for generations.
Except these programs weren't importing top talent, but the same talent the locals have, to suppress their wages.
Good luck telling people affected by mass layoffs and getting rejections that the country need to import more talent because there's a "talent shortage".
Top talent talent menas Nobel laureates, distinguished fellows in niche research fields, etc , not more full-stack devs and Microsoft Certified IT specialists.
If there's any truth to what you say, then each of these immigrant workers receive a salary which is significantly higher than their US born colleagues. They are as you say "top talent from around the world". A person who is among the world's best certainly has at least double the salary, right?
Well, the program may be poorly executed, but don't ignore the benefits of understanding and exchange between cultures. It does have that aspect to it.
But that raises the debate ... does the US really need to export MORE of its culture at taxpayer/citizens expect ? :|
As to the pause, repeal, destruction of this program, etc., however its characterized eventually, it seems to be inline with the idea of moving much of the manufacturing that left back home as well.
The psychology experts on youtube are all lamenting the disconnection of people and communities due to internet usage and less face time.
Framing that in terms of markets, the internet has empowered people to do more themselves, and rely on direct interaction with others less.
Economic shifts are behavioral shifts at the core, and in 2026 every programmer has a staff of 1,000+ unpaid AI agents at their disposal.
> the benefits of understanding and exchange between cultures
That's not what the program is for. If that's the goal they can create a visa program with that objective. The current one had the objective of filling positions that can't be met otherwise, and is indeed a farce and fully abused to suppress wages.
Anyone looking at the salaries in big tech will laugh you out of the room. You think the six figure salaries for writing shitty ass Go services is _wage suppression_ ?
They were also often doing basic stuff, like database programming. Even in AI, most of what they produce didn't have marketable value. So, I don't buy that they couldn't find or train anyone here to do the job.
In my experience finding good people is hard when the entire world is on the table. Limiting the pool based on stupid concepts like "nationality" is just a jobs program for the low quality people.
Same words are said by hotel owners unable to find eg. cleaning ladies for hotels over here in my small country.... touristy area (=very few locals), relatively far away from larger towns with more local population, everything is expensive there (eg. lunch and parking), and they offer minimum wage and then complain.
For minimum wage you can work in your home town, basically anywhere.. if you expect someone to spend 45minutes each direction on a bus for you and pack tupperware lunch, because there are no cheap "daily meal" restaurants around, you'll have to pay more... but hey, our government does the same, and there are always poorer countries with very desparate people.
The same applies to every other job, but you seem to not pay enough to even get someone good from poorer countries.
Just pay more, and you'll get good people, from your town even, not just across the whole country.
It’s not always about pay. In some special disciplines there are only a handful of people with sufficient training or talent. We don’t hire more Americans by cutting the candidate pool. We hire more by growing the economy with innovation, startup formation, academic research for basic concepts that aren’t commercially viable, government investment in core infrastructure and long horizon moon shots that aren’t commercially feasible.
There is only one Einstein and he wasn’t motivated by money. He was attracted to what America stood for. We are losing that
As someone who interviews 10+ candidates per week for high-paying software engineering jobs, the US pool is not big enough to find qualified people. It feels like H1B shouldn't be needed. But empirically, we do need to invite talented people from other countries.
I never really understood the idea of gatekeeping jobs -- especially those at the very high or the very low end.
On the very high end, wouldn't you want to poach the most intelligent folks from around the world and bring them into the US? That pool of high-performers is not a big one and you're directly removing competition and silo-ing all the best people under your control.
On the very low end, those are jobs that are non-competitive and enable the low-mid-high level jobs to exist (and for those workers to be compensated better and so on). If you're looking at the US right now, a great example is to look at the agriculture industry. Farm bankruptcies increased by almost 50% in 2025 and 2026 is looking even worse. These bankruptcies in 2025 happened before diesel prices spiked by 30-40% and tariffs killed international ag-trade. A lot of those bankruptcies can be attributed to the the lack of farm workers which either cause farms to not be able to generate revenue and/or have dramatically reduced margins.
The solution is staring you right in the face: Move your business to a country where these "qualified people" live, hire there and serve that market instead.
I don't buy your claim of "high-paying". If you don't pay as per US resident and urban standards, good domestic candidates obviously won't bother applying.
This is a load of shit. There are millions of people out of work in the US and it's likely that tens of thousands of those are perfectly qualified developers. Assuming your expectations haven't been completely warped, your real problem is that modern hiring as a process is completely broken as a result of multiple factors.
Both could be true. Just because millions are out of work doesn’t mean every specialty has sufficient domestic talent pool. No one says we should recruit only domestic talent in sports.
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.
It is an open secret that consulting companies (Tata, Infosys, Capgemini, etc.) are abusing the employee sponsored green cards.
But I'm surprised that Microsoft is accused doing it. I was under the impression that Microsoft will sponsor your green card but is still very strict about whom they hire and retain, regardless of immigration status. But maybe that has changed?
Tata, Infosys, HCL, and similar body shops are definitely a different story.
If you’re laying off employees en masse and still processing green cards that in itself is a red flag.
Companies have usually gotten around it saying we r laying off in 1 division but hiring in another. Maybe that hand waving can’t be swept under the rug anymore.
As discussed upthread, the PERM process is widely understood to be a farce, so it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the government has evidence of a Microsoft executive who wrote down that they didn’t want to replace a senior developer with 6 years of tenure. Everyone including JD Vance knows that’s a dumb outcome, but under the PERM regulations, you can only get that guy a visa if you tried and failed to replace him first.
Now, you're going to continue attracting LESS of the top tier talent as you make it clearer and clearer that you don't want them. This is the talent we want most.
Even if you're a laborer, it's quite hard to argue that the absolute pinnacle of the labor pool is dragging down your wages and not increasing total jobs.
If other countries are giving you better alternatives, why bring your talents to the US?
Frankly talent doesn’t matter any more with AI - the skill floor for software has dropped to zero so an average dev now competes with the best devs. Marketing and capital matter way more.
It still matters a bit for architectural direction - but those roles are so few I wouldn’t be concerned as an American.
Top talent exists domestically, this is to hold wages down. It’s fine to impair the import conveyor and see what happens. If and when there is a labor shortage or wages spike horrendously (highly unlikely), certainly, we can revisit.
Neoliberalism ignored domestic worker concerns for shareholder returns and corporatism, and an alternative was offered, here we are. It’s a natural experiment we might not otherwise had had the opportunity to run.
If the US can bully countries into releasing 100M barrels of petroleum supplies, what makes you think the US can’t solve for that too?
Everyone has a leverage point, everyone has a point at which the pain is worse than the ask. Companies and executives are easy, and usually of weak constitution. They fold fast, based on the evidence so far. US Big Tech fell in line super fast, right? “Fall in line or else.” If trillions of dollars in enterprise value and the resources it commands won’t save you, I’m unsure if anything else would.
It’s not right or wrong, it just is. We are living through a “might makes right” era. It’s not the first, won’t be the last (if history is our guide). This too shall pass.
Not surprising seeing those names, that list of companies are notorious for exploiting H1B too. The main reason it needs stronger enforcement and per country caps/ratios.
The green card process is not transferable. Once its started the applicant is stuck. I personally saw the company slow roll the process for one of my directs. I kept hassling them to move it along but to no avail. I saw this happen to colleagues at numerous companies.
Saying that labor in America doesn't have a right to protect itself from undercutting by foreign labor pools is classist and eliteist.
Don't you want working Americans to be able to afford the cost of living without having their employment/wages undercut by programs designed to benefit big business?
Yup, this is much more likely to lead to more offshoring than companies hiring more American workers. Which also means that communities in the US with a large amount of workers on visas will also suffer.
Sure, who doesn't want unlimited money? That's decidedly different from "needing" it (I could in no way manage to live on the West Coast on a Spanish salary, for example)
One might argue that it should, but as a remote worker in a low cost area I don't mind making 20% less than my NYC/Bay colleagues as I can still live like a king in my midwest city on regionally adjusted swe comp.
People need to stop asking what's better for the "economy" and start asking what's better for themselves. If the two don't align, it should be tough luck for the "economy", not the people.
Probably not a simple question or answer on the face of it, but it's really not worth looking at this action in such a narrow lens, because this is not happening in a vacuum. Instead, we should look at it through the overall context of all of this admin's immigration policies, which have been bad for the US economy.
Regulated industries often have business language mandating onshore, citizens-only employment. If it isn't required by immigration, the businesses buying the product are requiring assurances (likely due to their own compliance).
As for non-protected roles, global market participation has ups and downs.
Remote workers in India don't compete for housing, energy, health care, education, and food. If an American isn't getting the job anyway, then why bring them here in the first place to drive prices up for everyone else?
Sorry but there is no competition for health care in US. US basically has no health care. Unless of course you buy it (i.e. pay the fraudulent companies to give you false sense of security and leave you alone in the worst moment of your life)
This is an inane comment. Here are the two types of "remote" work:
1. Remote within the US. You still need valid work authorization;
2. Remote outside the US. This is just offshoring and if it really worked, every tech jobs would be offshored. Companies have been trying to do this for decades. Companies would love nothing more than to offshore every white collar job. They would if they could.
Why should we let politicians dictate which workers a company can hire? Not only that we have a politician doing this who has zero technical acumen and zero business success!
It's not just about who they hire, it's about who is brought into the country, which is much more under the purview of the federal government than traditional hiring decisions. They can hire anybody they want, but they'll have to keep them remote.
The AP blurb[0] has different quotes and includes an accusation of fraud that's missing from the Bloomberg article.
> Vance said Thursday, “If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants.” Vance spoke in a White House news conference announcing the decision.
Accepting Vance's premise, is he saying that the solution to replacing American workers with indentured servants is... removing the path out of indentured servitude? It sounds like they're not touching H1-B itself, just the path from H1-B to residency.
>The report finds that a broad path to citizenship would stabilize jobs and prices across the construction, hospitality, and care industries that families depend on while raising wages for all American workers.
The article posted is about suspending a Tech company's use of h1-b. The report makes no mention of the Tech sector and all the purported gains are in low-income high-physical labor industries like construction and hospitality. The whole wage and cost of living stabilization they're saying is due to immigrant labor is due to the fact you can exploit them for lower wages.
It further argues that Citizenship, not temp work visas, is the correct path. All while calling out that Tech companies, like Microsoft, are the primary beneficiaries of the current system.
In that light, I don't think linking this report arguing what you think it does.
It's "funny" that organizations like the AP, NYT, etc, still quote Vance after that. He never really had credibility beforehand but any he may have had was lost, surely.
Is that 2 or 10 nom's of furry friends, the numbers look the same to my binary eyes, math is hard with an ai buddy?
This admin has demonstrated many times they will misuse Ai and blindly trust whatever it spits out. Would not be surprised in the slightest if that was the case here.
Thanks! Unfortunately archive.ph requires passing an impassible computational paywall for some browsers/ips/etc. Since the article is so short it seem fine to just quote it in full here,
"The Trump administration said Thursday that it would suspend an immigration program for multiple tech firms, including Microsoft Corp., alleging widespread abuse of a worker visa system. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vice President JD Vance said, during a briefing in Washington. 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. The move is the latest by the Trump administration to crack down on legal and illegal pathways to migration. The program at issue allows US employers to help sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. “Microsoft is a great American company, and we have a great relationship with them, they do a lot of important things,” Vance said Thursday. “Our message to Microsoft is not that we want to harm your company. It’s that we want your company to thrive, but we want it to thrive by employing and empowering your fellow Americans.” Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
This is about these companies having the ability to sponsor employees for green cards. They can still employ people on visas. It's more accurate to say the government wants to prevent these workers from eventually becoming American.
Some proof of work type thing to prevent bots by changing the economics, presumably. It's that "checking you are a human" thing without forcing you to click images
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.
#1. Young, eager tech employee from India enrolls in Masters program at US mid-tier university.
#2. Completes course work with 90% other students from India in Florida, Texas, or California.
#3. Gets internship job as part of OPT. (Optional Practical Training)
#4. After 1 (or 2 years for STEM), employer puts in for H1B.
#5. After a round or two of H1B, employer starts the PERM process for a green card.(Tough journey for someone from India... I agree)
Young techie is now 32 years old. Perhaps they marry a US Citizen, and a different pathway opens up. Perhaps they transition to a "genius visa" and then have a different pathway. Perhaps the US government changes policy. It takes a long time but you are living and working in the US during the whole experience.
Stopping this path breaks the chain. If there is no path to citizenship, even a long one, then H1B will stop being so attractive.
Note the pathway for foreign students has been closed. Check on the MS program enrollments at most mid tier schools. Down 50%, 70%, 95%....
Green card backlog is so big for indians that this makes no difference. Except for one thing: this program apart from putting you on the green card waiting list, extends your H1-B beyond the initial phase, and also lets you change employers without restarting the whole process. Now that you can't change employers, the effect on employer leverage and salaries just worsens the existing situation w.r.t the stated goal of the government.
The US has been the beneficiary of the world's brain drain for the last...what, 50 years? 80 years?
They start the most businesses, they staff specialty roles like doctors, nurses, researchers, engineers. They put down roots and innovate. After 2-3 generations of course their kids are the same as every other American.
But first and second generation immigrants are far more driven and that shows up. They'll do the dirty jobs if they don't have an education, and if they do have an education they're going to be going for high impact roles.
Since we're going nativist long term I expect we're going to see innovation and productivity drop. It's not a one year change, but over generations we can expect to see the impact. Additionally immigration has been helping stave off our demographic rollover since our birth rate is relatively low. Without immigration which both increase working age population and tend to have more kids per capita than the native born Americans, we can expect the same demographic problems other countries are already dealing with.
How will we manage our giant deficit as growth slows? What if it stops? We can't rely on international integration that has given our giant companies worldwide profits given the way we've shattered the global order.
95% of the world ain't complaining at all if things slightly tilt towards more fair situation globally.
Frankly thanx to open hostility of recent governments towards anybody from outside I am surprised so many talented folks still desperately try to get there. As if greed for more money at almost all costs overshadowed general quality of life, happiness, time for an actual life and so on... life doesn't happen during comfy retirement, best of life happens when one is young or youngish. Especially if one burns themselves to the ground with endless work, what good are money on accounts then
This is how I can tell you aren’t an immigrant. Neither am I.
The money is what matters since it gives you resources you don’t have access to elsewhere. And it’s worth burning yourself out on because the situation is still better than the situation you left behind.
Happiness? Fulfillment? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
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.
There's some more detail here [1]. It looks like a bunch of companies were suspended from the PERM program. That means no new filings for green cards for H1B workers. I didn't realize the government had that authority. If so, I'm surprised it took this long.
This administration is 100% anti-immigrant. It's also incredibly racist. For example, in the last financial year, all but three refugee visas were issues to white South Africans fleeing a completely made up "genocide" [2].
But the H1B/PERM process is absolutely abused although Microsoft wouldn't be top of my list. Top would be all the Indian outsourcing companies (some or all of whom are suspended by this too btw). Here's how it works:
1. File for hundreds of thousands of H1Bs for Indian born engineers and IT professionals;
2. Because the quota has been vastly exceeded a third or less win the "lottery". You, as the employer, don't really care;
3. Bring them to the US and, in many cases, illegally underpay them. For example, withholding wages if they're not outsourced to another company;
4. H1Bs a 3 year visas with a 3 year extension allowed before needing to leave the US for at least a year but there's a loophole that if a PERM is filed for you before the 6 years is up, you can stay in the US until it's resolved. But green cards have per-country quotas (IIRC 7% per country of birth). This creates a massive backlog that will last 10-20+ years in which the employee effectively can't leave. They are essentially in indentured servitude and the employer can underpay and mistreat them without consequence.
This needs reform.
Anyway, if the likes of Tata and Infosys can no longer file green cards, this will kill the H1B funnel. Indian-born professionals won't subject themselves to this pipeline. Or maybe they will in the hopes that a future administration will change it? But if you don't have the green card filed within your 6 years, you need to leave anyway.
I'm generally anti this administration in pretty much every way but I support not being able to file for H1Bs if you've done layoffs in the last ~2 years. Let companies retrain people they've hired. Figure it out.
I think the problem is the opposite. “MAGA”, both the ideology and the workings of the administration, are largely internally self-contradictory and incoherent.
You might say “okay there’s still some corporate-cons who’ll take my money and do what I ask” but then there’s guys like Miller pulling the strings whose entire purpose is opposed to yours.
This might sound crazy, but maybe getting behind a stable and predictable gov't that has ensured corporate dominance for over a century would have been a smarter strategy? But hey what do I know…
But also maybe they got there by paying and lobbying previous admins to the detriment of the local workforce (though likely good fiscally for the orgs taking advantage of the program).
It is completely possible this is a legitimate issue, but the current administration has been so corrupt about everything else it is impossible to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Even if the claim is valid I’m sure the enforcement is targeted.
You think they’d go after palintir or spacex for the same issues?
There is a likelihood of some targeting though this isn’t the only admin to do that. Remember when the IRS was directed to audit conservative organizations (you know maybe they had a higher likely hood of fraud, maybe, but that was not proven)
That said, it seems this is targeting body farms. Firms that specialize in corrupting the process. Yes some people they bring over have unique talents, but a lot of them are run of the mill folks looking to become “manager” so they can attract a mate back home.
> Remember when the IRS was directed to audit conservative organizations
It was directed to audit them less, because they were complaining about being audited as much as other organizations. Yet another case where conservatives make themselves victims out of nowhere, to get preferential treatment and then continue pretend they were victims after proven wrong.
Citizens United means unlimited money in politics is free speech, they can always give more. Often, non-monetary tributes to the king, praise or peace prizes, go much further.
The corporate-government corruption is out of hand and I am glad more people are making it a top political issue. I have my doubts this latest from the admin will make a positive difference. It's primarily performative politics for the base with zero consideration for secondary effects or real causes.
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.
I hope it causes some people to return to Europe and do some good work over here.
I'm never sure how to feel about this kind of thing. On one hand, it's kind of interesting to see the self-destruction, and having qualified people return to Europe can only be a good thing for Europe. OTOH, it's scary to see, and I'm unsure whether I prefer a world where China gains much more power.
I think there are plenty of qualified and hard-working people in China, I'm not sure this change would increase the number of people there the same way it might in places like Europe or India.
While true, the question should be: is Europe doing those restrictions sensibly, or poorly?
If done in a similar fashion as the US has chosen, i.e. due to incoherent populism, it would limit the number of competent e.g. Americas, Canadians, South Africans etc. from joining the European workforce.
If done in a sensible fashion, it would only exclude the would-be migrants from those (or other) countries who have shown a wanton disregard for democracy and other constitutionally required values.
Except these programs weren't importing top talent, but the same talent the locals have, to suppress their wages.
Good luck telling people affected by mass layoffs and getting rejections that the country need to import more talent because there's a "talent shortage".
Top talent talent menas Nobel laureates, distinguished fellows in niche research fields, etc , not more full-stack devs and Microsoft Certified IT specialists.
But that raises the debate ... does the US really need to export MORE of its culture at taxpayer/citizens expect ? :|
As to the pause, repeal, destruction of this program, etc., however its characterized eventually, it seems to be inline with the idea of moving much of the manufacturing that left back home as well.
The psychology experts on youtube are all lamenting the disconnection of people and communities due to internet usage and less face time.
Framing that in terms of markets, the internet has empowered people to do more themselves, and rely on direct interaction with others less.
Economic shifts are behavioral shifts at the core, and in 2026 every programmer has a staff of 1,000+ unpaid AI agents at their disposal.
We can all just download programmers now. :|
That's not what the program is for. If that's the goal they can create a visa program with that objective. The current one had the objective of filling positions that can't be met otherwise, and is indeed a farce and fully abused to suppress wages.
We can count how many people are truly lamenting its loss, and follow the money.
Anyone looking at the salaries in big tech will laugh you out of the room. You think the six figure salaries for writing shitty ass Go services is _wage suppression_ ?
For minimum wage you can work in your home town, basically anywhere.. if you expect someone to spend 45minutes each direction on a bus for you and pack tupperware lunch, because there are no cheap "daily meal" restaurants around, you'll have to pay more... but hey, our government does the same, and there are always poorer countries with very desparate people.
The same applies to every other job, but you seem to not pay enough to even get someone good from poorer countries.
Just pay more, and you'll get good people, from your town even, not just across the whole country.
There is only one Einstein and he wasn’t motivated by money. He was attracted to what America stood for. We are losing that
I never really understood the idea of gatekeeping jobs -- especially those at the very high or the very low end.
On the very high end, wouldn't you want to poach the most intelligent folks from around the world and bring them into the US? That pool of high-performers is not a big one and you're directly removing competition and silo-ing all the best people under your control.
On the very low end, those are jobs that are non-competitive and enable the low-mid-high level jobs to exist (and for those workers to be compensated better and so on). If you're looking at the US right now, a great example is to look at the agriculture industry. Farm bankruptcies increased by almost 50% in 2025 and 2026 is looking even worse. These bankruptcies in 2025 happened before diesel prices spiked by 30-40% and tariffs killed international ag-trade. A lot of those bankruptcies can be attributed to the the lack of farm workers which either cause farms to not be able to generate revenue and/or have dramatically reduced margins.
But I'm surprised that Microsoft is accused doing it. I was under the impression that Microsoft will sponsor your green card but is still very strict about whom they hire and retain, regardless of immigration status. But maybe that has changed?
Tata, Infosys, HCL, and similar body shops are definitely a different story.
Companies have usually gotten around it saying we r laying off in 1 division but hiring in another. Maybe that hand waving can’t be swept under the rug anymore.
Even if you're a laborer, it's quite hard to argue that the absolute pinnacle of the labor pool is dragging down your wages and not increasing total jobs.
If other countries are giving you better alternatives, why bring your talents to the US?
It still matters a bit for architectural direction - but those roles are so few I wouldn’t be concerned as an American.
Neoliberalism ignored domestic worker concerns for shareholder returns and corporatism, and an alternative was offered, here we are. It’s a natural experiment we might not otherwise had had the opportunity to run.
It also exists non-domestically...
Everyone has a leverage point, everyone has a point at which the pain is worse than the ask. Companies and executives are easy, and usually of weak constitution. They fold fast, based on the evidence so far. US Big Tech fell in line super fast, right? “Fall in line or else.” If trillions of dollars in enterprise value and the resources it commands won’t save you, I’m unsure if anything else would.
It’s not right or wrong, it just is. We are living through a “might makes right” era. It’s not the first, won’t be the last (if history is our guide). This too shall pass.
The situation could be easier, make approved I140s portable and issue an EAD, but you aren't trapped with an employer.
First it's the illegal immigrants. Then the immigrants who use loopholes. Then the immigrants who get abused by service companies.
Now they are after MS employees who happen to be immigrants.
Look in the mirror.
Don't you want working Americans to be able to afford the cost of living without having their employment/wages undercut by programs designed to benefit big business?
YOU should look in the mirror.
I mean, we don't really need that west coast comp either? If I was pulling my old FAANG comp here in Spain, I'd be in the top 0.1% of earners...
Compared to having someone move to the US, does hiring a remote worker help or hinder the US economy?
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-afl-cio-report-...
https://www.npr.org/sections/planet-money/2026/05/12/g-s1-12...
As for non-protected roles, global market participation has ups and downs.
1. Remote within the US. You still need valid work authorization;
2. Remote outside the US. This is just offshoring and if it really worked, every tech jobs would be offshored. Companies have been trying to do this for decades. Companies would love nothing more than to offshore every white collar job. They would if they could.
not much in there beyond the headline but quotes from the admin
> Vance said Thursday, “If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants.” Vance spoke in a White House news conference announcing the decision.
[0] https://apnews.com/live/trump-midterm-elections-news-updates...
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-afl-cio-report-...
The article posted is about suspending a Tech company's use of h1-b. The report makes no mention of the Tech sector and all the purported gains are in low-income high-physical labor industries like construction and hospitality. The whole wage and cost of living stabilization they're saying is due to immigrant labor is due to the fact you can exploit them for lower wages.
It further argues that Citizenship, not temp work visas, is the correct path. All while calling out that Tech companies, like Microsoft, are the primary beneficiaries of the current system.
In that light, I don't think linking this report arguing what you think it does.
gotta love our post-truth world...
This admin has demonstrated many times they will misuse Ai and blindly trust whatever it spits out. Would not be surprised in the slightest if that was the case here.
"The Trump administration said Thursday that it would suspend an immigration program for multiple tech firms, including Microsoft Corp., alleging widespread abuse of a worker visa system. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vice President JD Vance said, during a briefing in Washington. 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. The move is the latest by the Trump administration to crack down on legal and illegal pathways to migration. The program at issue allows US employers to help sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. “Microsoft is a great American company, and we have a great relationship with them, they do a lot of important things,” Vance said Thursday. “Our message to Microsoft is not that we want to harm your company. It’s that we want your company to thrive, but we want it to thrive by employing and empowering your fellow Americans.” Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment."
* 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.
#1. Young, eager tech employee from India enrolls in Masters program at US mid-tier university.
#2. Completes course work with 90% other students from India in Florida, Texas, or California.
#3. Gets internship job as part of OPT. (Optional Practical Training)
#4. After 1 (or 2 years for STEM), employer puts in for H1B.
#5. After a round or two of H1B, employer starts the PERM process for a green card.(Tough journey for someone from India... I agree)
Young techie is now 32 years old. Perhaps they marry a US Citizen, and a different pathway opens up. Perhaps they transition to a "genius visa" and then have a different pathway. Perhaps the US government changes policy. It takes a long time but you are living and working in the US during the whole experience.
Stopping this path breaks the chain. If there is no path to citizenship, even a long one, then H1B will stop being so attractive.
Note the pathway for foreign students has been closed. Check on the MS program enrollments at most mid tier schools. Down 50%, 70%, 95%....
They start the most businesses, they staff specialty roles like doctors, nurses, researchers, engineers. They put down roots and innovate. After 2-3 generations of course their kids are the same as every other American.
But first and second generation immigrants are far more driven and that shows up. They'll do the dirty jobs if they don't have an education, and if they do have an education they're going to be going for high impact roles.
Since we're going nativist long term I expect we're going to see innovation and productivity drop. It's not a one year change, but over generations we can expect to see the impact. Additionally immigration has been helping stave off our demographic rollover since our birth rate is relatively low. Without immigration which both increase working age population and tend to have more kids per capita than the native born Americans, we can expect the same demographic problems other countries are already dealing with.
How will we manage our giant deficit as growth slows? What if it stops? We can't rely on international integration that has given our giant companies worldwide profits given the way we've shattered the global order.
Frankly thanx to open hostility of recent governments towards anybody from outside I am surprised so many talented folks still desperately try to get there. As if greed for more money at almost all costs overshadowed general quality of life, happiness, time for an actual life and so on... life doesn't happen during comfy retirement, best of life happens when one is young or youngish. Especially if one burns themselves to the ground with endless work, what good are money on accounts then
The money is what matters since it gives you resources you don’t have access to elsewhere. And it’s worth burning yourself out on because the situation is still better than the situation you left behind.
Happiness? Fulfillment? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
That’s for their kids or their grandkids.
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.
This administration is 100% anti-immigrant. It's also incredibly racist. For example, in the last financial year, all but three refugee visas were issues to white South Africans fleeing a completely made up "genocide" [2].
But the H1B/PERM process is absolutely abused although Microsoft wouldn't be top of my list. Top would be all the Indian outsourcing companies (some or all of whom are suspended by this too btw). Here's how it works:
1. File for hundreds of thousands of H1Bs for Indian born engineers and IT professionals;
2. Because the quota has been vastly exceeded a third or less win the "lottery". You, as the employer, don't really care;
3. Bring them to the US and, in many cases, illegally underpay them. For example, withholding wages if they're not outsourced to another company;
4. H1Bs a 3 year visas with a 3 year extension allowed before needing to leave the US for at least a year but there's a loophole that if a PERM is filed for you before the 6 years is up, you can stay in the US until it's resolved. But green cards have per-country quotas (IIRC 7% per country of birth). This creates a massive backlog that will last 10-20+ years in which the employee effectively can't leave. They are essentially in indentured servitude and the employer can underpay and mistreat them without consequence.
This needs reform.
Anyway, if the likes of Tata and Infosys can no longer file green cards, this will kill the H1B funnel. Indian-born professionals won't subject themselves to this pipeline. Or maybe they will in the hopes that a future administration will change it? But if you don't have the green card filed within your 6 years, you need to leave anyway.
I'm generally anti this administration in pretty much every way but I support not being able to file for H1Bs if you've done layoffs in the last ~2 years. Let companies retrain people they've hired. Figure it out.
[1]: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/international-b...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2026/06/26/nx-s1-5869796/the-white-genoc...
For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law
You might say “okay there’s still some corporate-cons who’ll take my money and do what I ask” but then there’s guys like Miller pulling the strings whose entire purpose is opposed to yours.
This might sound crazy, but maybe getting behind a stable and predictable gov't that has ensured corporate dominance for over a century would have been a smarter strategy? But hey what do I know…
Even if the claim is valid I’m sure the enforcement is targeted.
You think they’d go after palintir or spacex for the same issues?
That said, it seems this is targeting body farms. Firms that specialize in corrupting the process. Yes some people they bring over have unique talents, but a lot of them are run of the mill folks looking to become “manager” so they can attract a mate back home.
It was directed to audit them less, because they were complaining about being audited as much as other organizations. Yet another case where conservatives make themselves victims out of nowhere, to get preferential treatment and then continue pretend they were victims after proven wrong.
Will they learn their lesson? Find out next time!
Citizens United means unlimited money in politics is free speech, they can always give more. Often, non-monetary tributes to the king, praise or peace prizes, go much further.
The corporate-government corruption is out of hand and I am glad more people are making it a top political issue. I have my doubts this latest from the admin will make a positive difference. It's primarily performative politics for the base with zero consideration for secondary effects or real causes.
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.
I'm never sure how to feel about this kind of thing. On one hand, it's kind of interesting to see the self-destruction, and having qualified people return to Europe can only be a good thing for Europe. OTOH, it's scary to see, and I'm unsure whether I prefer a world where China gains much more power.
What's really interesting to see is your blindness to that self destruction.
If done in a similar fashion as the US has chosen, i.e. due to incoherent populism, it would limit the number of competent e.g. Americas, Canadians, South Africans etc. from joining the European workforce.
If done in a sensible fashion, it would only exclude the would-be migrants from those (or other) countries who have shown a wanton disregard for democracy and other constitutionally required values.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odyssey_(2026_film)
Microsoft and others are more focused on building data centers (homes for agents) than hiring humans at this point.