Washington | Democratic lawmaker Pramila Jayapal slammed the Trump administration's decision to suspend the green card pathway for Microsoft, saying it amounted to taking a hammer to the legal immigration system.
The Trump administration on Thursday suspended eight IT firms, including Microsoft, Tata, Infosys and Wipro, from a programme to apply for green cards for foreign workers, contending that the practice has shut out Americans from the job market.
Jayapal, who hails from Washington state - the home of Microsoft, said on Thursday the tech giant was a leader in advocating comprehensive immigration reforms.
Jayapal's remarks, seen as a defence of Microsoft, drew a dig from Vice President J D Vance, who wondered whether socialism meant making available never-ending cheap labour for megacorporations.
"'Socialism' apparently means fighting like hell to ensure megacorporations have a never-ending flow of cheap labour," Vance said.
Vance announced the suspension on Thursday, accusing major tech firms and outsourcing companies of abusing the visa system at the expense of American workers. Jayapal, a progressive Democrat from Washington state, said that the Trump 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.
Microsoft is headquartered in Redmond in Washington state.
"You don't fix a broken immigration system by taking a hammer to legal immigration," Jayapal said.
She said Microsoft has been a leader in advocating for comprehensive immigration reforms that modernise 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.
Jayapal said the Permanent Labor Certification Program (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 with steps to ensure that 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 US workers from unscrupulous employers," Jayapal said.
Targeting Microsoft or the PERM program in this way simply undermines legal immigration and weakens America's ability to innovate, she said.
