24-07-2025
JD Vance Issues H1-B Visa Warning
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Vice President JD Vance launched a withering critique of Microsoft on Wednesday, accusing the tech giant of letting go of American workers while relying heavily on immigrant labor through the H-1B visa program.
Speaking at a bipartisan event co-hosted by the Hill and Valley Forum, Vance questioned the ethics and economic logic behind mass layoffs followed by increased applications for employment-based visas.
"You see some big tech companies where they'll lay off 9,000 workers, and then they'll apply for a bunch of overseas visas. And I sort of wonder; that doesn't totally make sense to me.
"That displacement and that math worries me a bit. And what the president has said, he said very clearly: We want the very best and the brightest to make America their home. We want them to build great companies and so forth. But I don't want companies to fire 9,000 American workers and then to go and say, 'We can't find workers here in America.' That's a bullshit story."
Newsweek has contacted Microsoft for comment via email outside office hours.
Vice President JD Vance speaks at Don's Machine Shop in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, on July 16, 2025.
Vice President JD Vance speaks at Don's Machine Shop in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, on July 16, 2025.
Matt Rourke/AP
Why It Matters
The vice president's comments come amid growing scrutiny of the H-1B visa program, which allows U.S. companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. Sectors like technology, finance and academia are the primary beneficiaries. In 2024, leading firms such as Amazon, Google, Meta and Tesla secured thousands of H-1B approvals. Microsoft also received a significant number of approvals despite ongoing rounds of layoffs.
The H1B visa program has emerged as a political flashpoint within the Republican Party, exposing a rift between populist conservatives aligned with the MAGA movement, who argue the visas displace American workers, and pro-business factions, including Big Tech executives, who support Donald Trump but rely on the program to fill critical talent gaps. As pressure mounts on companies like Microsoft, the debate highlights growing tension over the future of high-skilled immigration in the U.S. economy.
What To Know
Vance's critique marks a shift in tone from the White House, signaling a more restrained and skeptical approach to employment-based immigration compared with previous years. President Donald Trump has previously backed employment-based visas like H-1B.
The H-1B program is currently capped at 65,000 new visas per year, with an additional 20,000 slots reserved for individuals holding advanced degrees from U.S. institutions. Critics argue that the cap is outdated and fails to reflect the demands of the modern workforce. Others, however, claim the program is ripe for abuse.
The political right remains divided over the issue. MAGA-aligned conservatives oppose the program over concerns about job losses and corporate exploitation. Meanwhile, moderate Republicans argue the visas are essential for filling talent shortages in highly technical fields.
Doug Rand, a senior official at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) under the Biden administration, told Newsweek that lawmakers on Capitol Hill should raise the cap.
Microsoft is facing mounting scrutiny over its use of the H-1B visa program after announcing a wave of layoffs in July that will impact approximately 9,000 employees globally.
The latest cuts, affecting about 4 percent of the company's total workforce, follow two earlier rounds in May and June, which together eliminated around 8,000 positions. In total, Microsoft has laid off nearly 16,000 employees so far this year, out of its global headcount of 228,000.
In the aftermath of the layoffs, social media posts began circulating on X, formerly Twitter, alleging that Microsoft has submitted applications for more than 6,000 H-1B visas since October, the start of the current fiscal year. While that specific figure has not been independently verified, official data shows that Microsoft filed 9,491 H-1B applications during the previous fiscal year, all of which were approved.
The timing of the layoffs and visa activity has raised questions from the right, who are calling for greater transparency and accountability in how tech firms manage both domestic and foreign hiring.
Although not the top recipient of H1B visas, Amazon claimed that spot in 2024 with more than 9,200 approvals. Microsoft ranked seventh among the top ten U.S. companies, securing approximately 4,700 approvals, according to data released earlier this year by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
What People Are Saying
Doug Rand, a senior official at USCIS during the Biden administration, told Newsweek: "The most important thing that Congress could do is raise the green card caps, so that long-term employers don't have to use the H-1B program in the first place.
"As far as executive branch measures that don't require Congress, we addressed a lot of H-1B abuse during the Biden administration by squeezing fraud out of the registration process and issuing a balanced regulation with more enforcement tools."
