Microsoft's Brad Smith pushes back on JD Vance's visa fraud accusations: 'Numbers were wrong'

What happened?

Microsoft President Brad Smith, in an interview with Politico, rejected Vice President JD Vance's accusations of visa fraud against the company. Smith argued the White House was misinformed about Microsoft's foreign worker numbers.

What did Vance say?

At a White House news conference last week, Vance claimed Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Vance said, "For every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants."

Microsoft's response

Smith said Microsoft has "always been committed to a high integrity and high compliance" approach to immigration, adding, "We will stand by our record." He noted the company hired 9,200 American workers in its last fiscal year, a figure he said was "left out of the narrative." Smith also rejected the idea that visa holders are paid less: "It doesn't matter whether you came on a visa or you're an American worker. Everybody has the same compensation system."

PERM suspended

What Microsoft lost is access to PERM, a key step toward permanent residency (green card). PERM is run by the Labor Department and requires employers to advertise the job and show no qualified, available US worker can fill it. It is commonly used for employees already working in the US on temporary visas, including H-1Bs.

What it means for the industry

Smith warned the crackdown could send "the most talented next wave" of engineers to other countries. He noted five of the six tech leaders President Trump honored with national medals last week, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, came to the US as immigrants.