Microsoft is suspended from applying for permanent residency for workers employed through a US visa program for high-skilled workers, JD Vance announced on Thursday.

The US vice-president accused the tech company of abusing the H-1B system, which allows those on the visa to work while they apply and are in process for a green card.

“Our message to Microsoft is, you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said at a press conference announcing the suspension. “You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”

Microsoft said the vast majority of its workers are American and 80% of the H-1B applications it filed in the last year were for extensions or status changes for people who already worked for the company.

“Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category,” the company wrote in a statement. “We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work.”

The US labor department also said Adobe had been similarly suspended.

“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies,” said Keith Sonderling, the US labor secretary, in a statement.

Microsoft applied for an H-1B visa for nearly 3,700 workers in 2026, making it the fifth largest employer of workers on the visa. Tech companies are the biggest employers of H-1B workers across the industry. Amazon topped the list with more than 9,300 petitions this year. Sonderling said since 2009, Microsoft and Adobe had received about 230,000 approvals for H-1B visas and 100,000 “permanent labor certifications”, a step towards an employment-based green card.

“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 said.

The Trump administration has set its sights on the H-1B program for some time, arguing that it is rife with abuse. Vance said that on average, workers hired through the H-1B program were making $20,000 less than US workers in the same position.

“So I’m sure that everybody here understands the game that is being played,” Vance said. “You bring in indentured servants from outside the country, you lay off American workers and, if you’re a corporation, you make a ton of money by undercutting the wages of American workers, replacing them with people who, frankly, shouldn’t be in the United States of America to begin with.”

Immigration advocacy groups have long called for reforms for the H-1B program, though for different reasons. Those in the program are often beholden to their employer because their visas are tied to the company that applied for them, making it difficult to switch jobs if things aren’t going well or if they want to find a job with a higher salary.

These groups, like the National Immigration Forum, largely disagree with Vance. They argue that competing for specialized talent from around the world benefits the US economy.

“The United States has long benefited from its ability to attract talent from around the world, particularly in STEM, higher education, research, and innovation,” the National Immigration Forum wrote in a September 2026 blogpost discussing proposed changes to the H-1B program. “As countries increasingly compete for highly skilled workers, policies that make the United States less attractive could strengthen global competitors.”