The Labor Department announced sweeping new punishments Thursday against major firms that it said are laying off American workers and replacing them with lower-paid foreign guest workers.
Vice President J.D. Vance said the department has also opened investigations into nine major universities that seem to prefer foreign graduate students and researchers over Americans.
The targets include some of the biggest and most iconic players.
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Two of them, Microsoft and Adobe, have been suspended from a program that lets companies convert guest workers into permanent immigrants.
The Labor Department said that was a response to abuse of the system — hiring foreign workers at lower wages to hold jobs that used to be done by Americans.
Meanwhile, Harvard, Yale and Stanford top the list of the nine universities facing investigation over relying too heavily on foreign researchers.
Federal officials said more than 60% of the post-doctoral researchers at the schools are foreigners, or roughly double the average at other colleges.
“They’re using these visas way too much. They’re using them to undercut the wages of American grad students and American researchers, and it simply has to stop,” Mr. Vance said. “This is a fundamental insult to the American worker and the American way of life.”
The two programs at issue are the J-1 visa, which lets schools and institutions bring in foreign researchers, and the H-1B visa, which is supposed to be reserved for high-skilled labor that can’t be filled in the U.S.
The H-1B is a nonimmigrant visa, meaning the workers are supposed to return home after their time here. But the Program Electronic Review Management program allows firms that employ H-1B workers to convert them to permanent legal residents.
Mr. Vance said the intent was to let firms bring in truly exceptional foreign workers, but it’s become a source of cheap labor. He said companies are supposed to certify they can’t find a qualified American, but firms are playing loose with that requirement, which he said amounts to fraud.
He particularly targeted Microsoft, saying it laid off 6,000 Americans and replaced them with 6,300 foreign H-1B workers.
Suspending them from the PERM program is a way to get the company’s attention, he said.
“Our message to Microsoft is, ’You’re a great American company but you’ve got to hire great American workers,’” he said.
The Washington Times has sought comment from Microsoft.
The Labor Department had suspended six “visas mills,” or companies that recruit and outsource H-1B visa workers, from the PERM program.
The colleges facing investigation over J-1 visa use are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Pittsburgh, the California Institute of Technology, Arizona State, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California, Davis.
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito said the schools’ deep pockets and connections won’t protect them.
“Nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” he said.
Mr. D’Esposito said subpoenas have already been issued in the investigations.
He said a particular worry over relying on foreign researchers is China and whether it’s using America’s visa system to gain access to technology and research.
Mr. Vance decried the “pernicious idea” that permeates some American organizations that “Americans are not good enough for the jobs in their own country.”
“This visa fraud is a frontal assault on the idea that you deserve to inherit the jobs and the positions in your own country,” the vice president said.
Mr. Vance said there’s room to bring in “a genius” — he named those like Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Lisa Su, president of Advanced Micro Devices.
But he said that for a more basic job, such as an accountantmaking $70,000 a year, who is replaced with a foreign worker making $40,000, “you are committing fraud.”
He said Congress should reform the program at the root, but said the administration has some tools available.
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