Washington, October 16, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Microsoft President Brad Smith has rejected US Vice President JD Vance’s allegations that the technology giant misuses the H-1B visa programme, calling the accusations “completely off base” and warning that restrictions on employment-based green cards could weaken America’s technology sector for more than a generation.
In an interview with Politico published on Thursday, Smith said the claims about Microsoft’s immigration practices appeared to be based on inaccurate information. He argued that most of the company’s green-card applications involved existing employees who had been waiting for years because of lengthy processing backlogs, rather than newly recruited foreign workers.
“Someone had failed to inform the vice president accurately about our numbers,” Smith said.
He also denied that Microsoft paid foreign workers less than American employees, saying compensation was determined by a common system for workers performing comparable roles, regardless of their immigration status.
Smith said Microsoft had hired more than 9,000 US-born workers last year, arguing that the company’s domestic recruitment record had been overlooked in the controversy.
“We will stand by our record,” he said, urging the White House to reconsider what he described as a more accurate account of the company’s hiring practices.
The remarks followed the US administration’s move to suspend permanent labour certification filings by Microsoft and seven other employers, including Indian IT companies Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCLTech. The suspension, announced on October 8, affects the PERM process, which is the first step in most employer-sponsored green-card applications.
Vance had accused Microsoft of using the H-1B programme to avoid hiring Americans at higher salaries and said the restrictions would remain in place for as long as necessary. However, none of the eight companies had been charged, according to the source report.
Smith also questioned the timing of the announcement, which came on the same day President Donald Trump presented Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.
He noted that five of the six Americans honoured by the President with technology and science medals that day had immigrated to the United States, arguing that their contributions demonstrated the value of skilled immigration.
Smith warned that policies sending restrictive signals to highly skilled workers could encourage the next generation of artificial intelligence and software engineers to build their careers in other countries.
Microsoft said in an October 8 statement that about 80 per cent of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the previous fiscal year involved extensions or changes in status for existing employees.
Indian nationals account for the largest share of H-1B visa holders and face particularly long waits for employment-based green cards. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said the US measures do not advance the shared ambitions of the two countries.
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