Indias government has lodged a formal protest against Vice President JD Vance, accusing him of using deeply offensive language with painful colonial connotations after he warned American corporations not to replace U.S. employees with foreign labor.
The diplomatic flare-up erupted after the administration announced that Microsoft, Adobe, and six major IT outsourcing firms would be suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification program, which allows employers to sponsor foreign workers for green cards. According to Gateway Pundit, the move reflects growing concern in Washington that multinational tech companies are exploiting immigration channels to undercut American workers while outsourcing high-paying jobs overseas.
Speaking at a White House press conference Thursday, Vance made clear that U.S. companies must put American workers first. They cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants, he declared, using language that underscored a populist, America-first approach long championed by President Donald Trump and his allies.
The remarks triggered a sharp rebuke from Indias Ministry of External Affairs, which rushed to defend its nationals working in the United States. We believe that such descriptions are unwarranted and ignore the fact that Indian professionals in the United States are highly educated and skilled contributors to its economy and innovation ecosystem, the ministry said.
New Delhi further argued that the terminology carried painful historical and colonial legacy connotations and was deeply offensive. The reference to indentured servitude is particularly sensitive in India, where millions of laborers were shipped to British colonies under harsh contracts during the era of imperial rule.
Vance, whose wife is of Indian origin, specifically called out Microsoft, accusing the tech behemoth of laying off thousands of Americans while continuing to hire foreign workers through the H-1B visa pipeline. Microsoft has rejected that characterization, insisting that most of its U.S. workforce are American citizens and that the overwhelming majority of its H-1B applications involve existing employees rather than new foreign recruits.
The policy clash carries significant economic implications for India, which has heavily relied on U.S. visa programs to fuel its booming IT sector. According to U.S. government data, approximately 70 percent of H-1B visa beneficiaries in 2025 were born in India, making Indian professionals by far the largest users of the program.
Indias government maintains that the arrangement is mutually beneficial and should be preserved despite rising protectionist sentiment in the United States. Talent mobility adds value to both economies, the ministry said, adding that the suspensions do not advance the shared ambitions of both countries.
The suspension list includes Indian tech giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL, along with Cognizant and Capgemini, all of which have built business models around large-scale offshoring and visa-dependent staffing. Indian officials have stressed that the current measures do not automatically cancel existing H-1B visas or alter the legal status of visa holders and their dependents, but the episode underscores a broader shift toward prioritizing American workers over corporate demands for cheaper foreign labor.
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