Microsoft's Brad Smith Calls Vance's H-1B Abuse Claims 'Completely Off Base,' Taking a Freeze With No Hearing Date to the Public

Microsoft’s president has publicly rejected the administration’s case for freezing the company’s green card filings. Because the freeze appears to be a fraud-investigation suspension with no built-in hearing, the dispute is being argued in public, and mostly over numbers.

Microsoft President Brad Smith says Vice President JD Vance’s claims that the company abused the H-1B program are “completely off base,” in an interview Politico published Thursday, according to Reuters. Smith warned that shutting highly skilled immigrants out of permanent residency could “cripple” the U.S. technology sector for more than a generation. It is Microsoft’s most direct answer yet to the Labor Department’s Oct. 8 decision to suspend it and seven other employers from the PERM labor certification program.

The stakes are concrete for Microsoft employees whose green card cases have not yet cleared PERM, the first step for most employment-based green cards. Under the suspension, the Labor Department is not accepting new PERM applications from the eight employers or processing pending ones, so those cases cannot reach the I-140 stage until it lifts. H-1B petitions are not covered. Smith’s remarks signal that Microsoft intends to contest the government’s account rather than wait quietly. The White House and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Two sets of figures that measure different things

Announcing the suspension at the White House, Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, GeekWire reported. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft,” he said. Microsoft answered the same day that it filed about 6,000 H-1B applications in its last fiscal year, that 80 percent were extensions or changes of status for people already on its payroll, and that the rest were new hires already living lawfully in the United States, a group equal to about 1 percent of its U.S. workforce. Smith added, according to Reuters, that Microsoft hired more than 9,000 U.S.-born workers last year and pays everyone under one compensation system regardless of immigration status.

Both accounts can be accurate at once. An H-1B extension counts as an approval in government data, so a large approval total can coexist with very few new foreign arrivals. What neither side has made public is the material a fraud finding would actually rest on: whether particular PERM applications misdescribed jobs, recruitment or layoffs. PERM rules already require an employer with layoffs in the same or a related occupation in the area of employment within six months before filing to show it notified and considered the laid-off U.S. workers (20 CFR 656.17(k)). The Labor Department has not published PERM volumes for Microsoft. Nationally, it certified 104,028 PERM applications from Oct. 1, 2025, through June 30, 2026, and had 120,429 pending at the end of that period, according to its Office of Foreign Labor Certification.

Why the fight is happening in interviews, not hearings

Officials have not named the regulation behind the freeze, but the Labor Department’s PERM rules offer two tools, and the difference shapes what Microsoft can do. A suspension of processing under 20 CFR 656.31(b) can be imposed while possible fraud is investigated, lasts initially up to 180 days, and can then be extended by the National Certifying Officer if no charges have been filed. Debarment under 656.31(f) can run up to three years, but it requires a written notice explaining the reasons in detail and lets the employer request review before it takes effect. The suspension provision contains no comparable review step.

The practical effect is that Microsoft has no scheduled forum in which to rebut Vance’s figures. Its options are a federal lawsuit, likely under the Administrative Procedure Act, or persuasion, and Smith’s interview is plainly the second. The administration’s position is that heavy visa use alongside layoffs justifies the freeze. Counting 180 days from Oct. 8, the initial suspension period would end on April 6, 2027, a calculation that assumes the clock started on the announcement date. Workers nearing the six-year H-1B limit with no PERM filed have the least room to wait.

What to watch

A White House reply: whether officials release the evidence behind the abuse claims or answer Smith’s figures.
Written Labor Department guidance: on what happens to pending PERM cases and whether the action is a suspension or a step toward debarment.
Litigation: any suit by one of the eight employers or by affected workers.
April 6, 2027: the end of the initial 180-day suspension window, if it is counted from Oct. 8.

This article is for general information and is not legal advice.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

Author's website Author's posts