JD Vance announces visa crackdown targeting Microsoft and nine US universities

WASHINGTON, United States(AFP)—United States (US) Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that software giant Microsoft was being suspended from a key visa programme as part of a fraud crackdown by President Donald Trump’s administration. Top US universities, including Harvard, that have long been in Trump’s crosshairs over supposed left-wing bias also face an investigation over alleged visa fraud, said Vance. Vance, who is widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, was named by Trump to head an anti-fraud task force earlier this year. "Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers," the vice president told a press conference at the White House. His announcement came hours before Trump -- who has himself been accused of unprecedented corruption while president -- was to award Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the most prestigious US technology medal at a ceremony in Washington. Vance accused Microsoft of abusing the H-1B visa program for highly-skilled foreign workers, saying they had "laid off 6,000 American workers while replacing them with 6,300 H-1Bs." Microsoft pushed back, saying the "vast majority" of its US employees were Americans and that it looked forward to providing the administration with more information. The company said that of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year, 80 percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees rather than to hire new staff. The remaining filings were for people already legally in the United States who chose to join the company, and amounted to just one percent of its US workforce, Microsoft said. "They are not new arrivals to our country," the company said, adding that it paid its H-1B employees the same as other staff doing comparable work. Software firm Adobe was also being suspended from the visa program, Vance said. Trump has compared Vance to legendary 1920s law enforcement agent Eliot Ness of the "Untouchables" after a series of fraud probes that have often targeted Democrat-run states and migrant communities. Republicans hope the issue will resonate with voters ahead of midterm elections in November, in which the Iran war and the cost of living could cost the party its control of Congress. Nine elite universities, also including Yale, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), would also be probed over a separate visa program for study exchanges, Vance said. "Something weird is going on at these universities, they’re using these visas way too much," Vance said, accusing the institutions of using them to hire cheaper foreign researchers. The Trump administration has been pressing a campaign against a series of major US universities for alleged left-wing bias and antisemitism, moving to freeze billions in federal funding for Harvard in particular.

Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that the Trump administration is targeting multiple universities that he claims “bring in foreigners to undercut the wages of American residents.”  Vance singled out Yale University, Harvard University, Stanford University, Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Davis, the California Institute of Technology, Arizona State University, and the University of Pittsburgh at a press conference, saying that the government would be investigating them. Vance said the Trump administration believes that these institutions exploit the J-1 visa program, which allows foreign students to work and conduct research in the United States. The investigation will also include a team examining visa fraud. “Something weird is going on at these universities,” Vance said. “They’re using these visas way too much. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop.”In the same press conference, Vance defended tech CEO Elon Musk’s contributions to the country as a positive example of a foreign student. Musk came to the U.S. on a J-1 visa as a student, but never enrolled in the Stanford University graduate courses his visa was tied to, instead working illegally on a tech startup. “It’s one thing if you were to bring in a person like Elon Musk. I think 99 percent of American citizens look at somebody like Elon Musk or Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, and say, obviously, ‘If that person wants to come in and build something great in the US, we support that,’” Vance said, before attacking companies and institutions who hire foreigners as accountants and pay them far less than American citizens. A reporter pressed Vance about Musk, noting that he didn’t build his companies overnight, and asked how the government would determine if a prospective immigrant was the next Musk. “Does the person coming in fill a position that simply cannot be filled by an American worker? That’s question number one,” Vance said. “Question number two, very importantly, is this person a truly elite human being, are they truly bringing in a special set of skills, and abilities, and work ethic, and competence?” Vance seems to be trying to thread a needle by saying some foreign students are okay, but others are not. Musk committed the very fraud the Trump administration claims to be trying to combat. But the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX is the world’s richest man, supports Trump, and has racist ideas about immigration, so he gets a pass. 

Vice President Vance on Thursday announced a probe into multiple colleges over their use of the J-1 visa program that allows foreign students and researchers to come study or work in the U.S.  "Elite universities bring in foreigners to undercut the wages of American residents," Vance said in a press conference regarding fraud and abuse in work...