Microsoft President Warns Crackdown on Skilled Immigration Could Hurt US Tech for Decades

Representative image. (AI generated)

Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith has pushed back hard against the Trump administration’s plan to block green cards for skilled foreign workers at his company. He warned that the move could damage America’s tech industry for more than a generation, and he rejected the vice president’s claim that Microsoft is committing visa fraud.

Less than a week before Smith spoke, Vice President JD Vance announced that the administration would stop Microsoft and seven other companies from seeking green cards for their skilled foreign employees. Vance also accused Microsoft of fraud. His claim was that the company misuses the H-1B skilled worker visa program so it can avoid hiring Americans at higher salaries.

Smith answered in an interview with Politico this week, on the sidelines of the International AI Summit in Dublin, Ireland. He went well beyond the statement Microsoft put out last week.

Smith noted what he sees as an irony in the timing. On the same day the White House went after Microsoft’s foreign workers, it also awarded a medal to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who is from India and once held an H-1B visa.

He widened the point to the whole ceremony.

Original source: https://www.timesnownews.com/latest-news