India’s peak technology industry body, NASSCOM, has shrugged off changes to the USA’s skilled visa regime, and Microsoft has denied it abuses the program.

The changes, announced on Thursday by US vice president JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, mean that Microsoft and Adobe can no longer use the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) program to convert holders of the H-1B visa for skilled workers to permanent residents. Sonderling also revoked access to PERM for Indian companies Infosys, Tata, Wipro, and HCL, plus Capgemini.

The secretary said the change followed criminal investigations and alleged “fraud and abuse.”

“Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost three million foreign workers,” he said. “They've received over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications. That's hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers.”

Vice President Vance weighed in with what he called a “message to Microsoft.”

“You’re a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers. You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”

Critics of the H-1B visa have often alleged that US companies use it to bring in foreign workers who are prepared to work for less than Americans. The theory even extends to an allegation that India’s outsourcers use H-1B visas to bring in workers whose main agenda is offshoring more work to India. Some observers suggest skilled workers have a secondary motivation of using their time in the US to seek visas for family members.

Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella once held an H-1B visa, and which has fired over 20,000 staff since early 2025, took issue with the administration’s decision in a strongly worded post.

“Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category,” the company wrote. “We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work.”

“Microsoft succeeds as a global technology leader by developing the world’s best technology workforce,” the company’s post continues. “We do this by strengthening this country’s talent pipeline, hiring American workers, and attracting the best talent from around the world.”

That’s essentially the same argument used by NASSCOM, and Indian politicians such as minister of state Vardhan Singh, who last year said that “skilled talent mobility has long played a significant role in promoting technology advancement, innovation, economic growth, and wealth creation in both India and the United States.”

NASSCOM, which has never found a reason to doubt that Indian tech companies are anything other than excellent corporate citizens, took to X to share its view that “immigration and skilled talent mobility are two distinct issues and should not be viewed through the same lens.”

The lobby group also argued “Over a number of years, Indian technology companies have significantly reduced their dependence on H-1B visas, while steadily expanding local hiring and building a strong domestic workforce in the U.S.”

“They work with majority of the US fortune 500 companies, enable them to innovate and grow, and generate more local jobs. Consequently, the number of employees transitioning from H-1B visas to permanent residency through the PERM process is also relatively limited.”

Microsoft vowed to provide the Trump administration with more information about its migration initiatives. ®