Hiring
Microsoft President Brad Smith has publicly rejected the Trump administration’s accusations against the company’s use of skilled-worker immigration programs, calling Vice President JD Vance’s fraud claims “completely off base” and warning that restricting green cards could send top engineering talent to other countries. Smith made the remarks to Politico’s Decoded newsletter on Wednesday, Oct. 14, on the sidelines of the International AI Summit in Dublin; Politico published the interview on Oct. 15.
The interview is a public rebuttal from Microsoft’s president a week after the Oct. 8 announcement in which Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, appearing with Vance, said the Labor Department would stop accepting new permanent labor certification applications, known as PERM, from Microsoft, Adobe and six IT services firms. PERM is the step most employers must complete before sponsoring a worker for an employment-based green card. Officials cited active federal investigations, and no end date has been announced.
What Smith said
At the Oct. 8 event, Vance said Microsoft had laid off about 6,000 American workers over the past year while benefiting from about 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards, and accused the company of abusing the H-1B program to avoid hiring Americans at higher salaries.
Smith told Politico that someone had failed to inform the vice president accurately about Microsoft’s numbers. He said the “vast majority” of the company’s green card applications were for employees who had worked there for years, and that the delays stemmed from long green card backlogs rather than new hiring. He also rejected the claim that visa holders are paid less, saying that whether someone came on a visa or is an American worker, “everybody has the same compensation system.”
Smith said the more than 9,000 U.S.-born workers Microsoft hired in its last fiscal year had been “left out of the narrative.” “We will stand by our record,” he said, adding that he hoped White House officials would look again at the numbers.
The talent argument
Smith tied the dispute to a broader warning about the U.S. technology workforce. He noted that on the same day, President Trump presented National Medals of Science and National Medals of Technology and Innovation to six Americans, and that five of the six had come to the United States as immigrants. One of them was Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella, a former H-1B visa holder. Smith said the companies of those five immigrant honorees together account for more than 25% of the market value of the S&P 500. “Let’s not put that at risk,” he said, adding that the country should be worried about sending signals that drive the next wave of top software engineers to other countries.
The White House did not immediately respond to Smith’s comments, according to Politico. Microsoft told Newsweek on Oct. 15 that it had nothing to add.
Why it matters for hiring
For workers already in Microsoft’s green card pipeline, Smith’s comments do not change anything yet: the Labor Department’s suspension remains in place, and no timeline or path to reinstatement has been published. What the interview does signal is that Microsoft intends to contest the administration’s account rather than quietly adjust, which makes a quick resolution less likely if the government holds its position.
For the broader tech labor market, the dispute highlights a distinction that often gets lost. Most of the company’s filings, by Smith’s account, concern people already on the payroll, so a PERM freeze primarily affects retention and long-term status for existing employees rather than new hiring.
The catch
The competing figures have not been independently reconciled. Vance’s numbers and Smith’s rebuttal describe different things, and neither side released a detailed breakdown. The 9,000-plus hiring figure is Smith’s, and reports differ on its precision; Newsweek’s account quoted him citing 9,200. The suspension does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing, and it does not cancel existing H-1B status. Workers with questions about their own cases should consult an immigration attorney.
Sources
- Politico (via Yahoo News), “Microsoft’s president warns White House against skilled immigration crackdown,” October 15, 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/microsoft-president-warns-white-house-110000677.html
- Newsweek, “Green Card Update: Microsoft President Says Vance ‘Off Base’ on H-1B Visa,” October 15, 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/green-card-update-microsoft-president-says-vance-off-base-on-h-1b-visa-12574407
- Boundless, “DOL Suspends Eight Employers From PERM Labor Certification,” October 8, 2026. https://www.boundless.com/blog/dol-suspends-employers-perm-labor-certification
Featured photo: Aerial view of the redevelopment of Microsoft's headquarters campus in Redmond, Washington, seen from a plane on Sept. 26, 2021. Photo: Atomic Taco, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0). Cropped from the original.
