Vice President JD Vance announced Thursday that Microsoft, one of Seattle’s largest employers, would no longer be included in a program that lets companies apply for employee visas and put them on a path to a green card.
Pramila Jayapal, Washington District 7
This is a crucial issue for me as the top Democrat on the Immigration Subcommittee, the only member of Congress to have actually had an H-1B visa, and the Representative for tens of thousands of Microsoft workers. The administration has been consistently working to take away legal pathways for immigrants to contribute their talents to our country, and this is yet another of those attacks.
The PERM program is the first step toward an employment-based green card for countless workers who want to contribute to this country, and it lays out a clear process to ensure this is a net benefit to our economy and does not harm American jobs. Our economy, our communities, and our families depend on immigrants in many sectors, including the tech sector, and heavy-handed attacks like this only hurt efforts to build a strong, stable, and diverse base of workers who have legal pathways to come and be in the United States while also protecting U.S. workers from unscrupulous employers.
You don’t fix a broken immigration system by taking a hammer to legal immigration. Microsoft has led the way in advocating for comprehensive immigration reforms that modernize an antiquated immigration system and provide more—not fewer—legal pathways for immigrants from all over the world to work here and be with their families. Targeting Microsoft or the PERM program in this way simply undermines legal immigration and weakens America’s ability to innovate.
Congresswoman Suzan DelBene, Washington District 1, Bellevue
“The Trump administration’s action today is an attack on current H-1B visa holders already in the United States. Haphazardly taking away the pathway to a lawful green card for skilled workers at certain American companies is a biased and punitive misuse of the law. Let’s be clear: this move will have no impact on purported H-1B visa abuse. It simply undercuts a legal way for people to work, stay with their family, and become a part of our communities. This will inject even more uncertainty into our already turbulent economy while hamstringing innovation, competitiveness, and ultimately American workers.”
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