White House targets Stanford, Caltech and tech giants in visa crackdown
The White House is increasing its marketing campaign in opposition to cross-border staff, focusing on elite examine and work visa holders with restrictions and a brand new investigation.
On Thursday, the Trump administration introduced a probe into whether or not Stanford, Caltech, UC Davis and different universities throughout the nation have been abusing a particular visa utilized by cross-border students and college students to do analysis and work within the U.S. It can be suspending Microsoft, Adobe and 6 different tech firms from how they sponsor staff who’re within the nation beneath a extremely expert employee visa program.
The White House’s concern is that faculties and corporations are too fast to herald individuals from exterior the U.S. The strikes rattled Silicon Valley executives and California educators who see quick access to the neatest, hardest-working individuals within the international stage as one in every of America’s best aggressive benefits.
Vice President JD Vance mentioned the colleges being investigated are overusing J-1 visas to herald college students and researchers from overseas. The cross-border students then take jobs and grants that might go to Americans.
“They are utilizing these visas manner an excessive amount of,” he mentioned. “They are utilizing them to undercut the wages of American grad college students and American researchers, and it merely has to cease.”
Harvard, Yale, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, Arizona State and MIT can even be investigated.
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito mentioned subpoenas have been served and “no person will probably be getting a free move as a result of their identify is carved into an costly constructing.” Many universities have buildings named for international donors.
While a lot of the firms focused for the tech visa restriction had been Indian, Vance known as out Microsoft.
“There’s been no firm, sadly, within the United States that has abused this technique greater than Microsoft,” Vance advised reporters at a White House information convention.
Vance mentioned the corporate has abused the everlasting labor certification program, which he argued has enabled Microsoft to rent cross-border expertise that’s then paid much less to switch American staff.
The new growth suspends Microsoft from making use of for inexperienced playing cards for staff who come to the U.S. on H-1B visas and later apply to turn out to be everlasting residents.
American expertise giants have relied on the H-1B visa program for many years to herald hundreds of expert international staff they can’t discover regionally. Critics have accused this system of being riddled with fraud and abuse.
The administration’s energy transfer got here the identical day President Trump awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to 2 prime examples of cross-border expertise who got here to the U.S. on scholar and work visas: Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella and Tesla’s Elon Musk.
Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini had been additionally on the record of firms that may now not have the ability to apply for everlasting residence standing for his or her H-1B staff.
Microsoft defended the usage of H-1B and mentioned in an announcement that it regarded ahead to sharing extra info with the administration. In a put up, it mentioned that of the hundreds of H-1B visa purposes it submitted within the final fiscal yr, 80% had been to increase or change the standing of current Microsoft staff.
“They equal only one% of our U.S. workforce. They should not new arrivals to our nation,” the corporate mentioned. “Microsoft solely information H-1B petitions for many who meet the rigorous requirements of this visa class.”
There’s a restrict of 85,000 H-1B visas issued in a fiscal yr, and they’re chosen via a lottery system. Last yr, Microsoft was the third-largest beneficiary of this system, with 6,258 H-1B visas, in line with data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amazon led the record, using greater than 13,000 H-1 B visa holders; Adobe had 777 accepted purposes.
The Thursday announcement has sparked confusion amongst expertise staff and corporations. Immigration attorneys level out that the motion is just not a blanket suspension of inexperienced card purposes for all employers, however a focused enforcement freeze on the Permanent Labor Certification program for the eight named companies.
Proponents of H-1B notice that Silicon Valley’s greatest tech firms are based or run by immigrants, and the efforts to thwart H-1B have already began stifling expertise stream and startup creation.
“It’s solely going to most likely harm some firms and harm the very best and the brightest which might be coming right here,” mentioned Devashish Mitra, professor of economics at Syracuse University. “It’s like throwing the infant with the bathwater.”
The J-1 investigations comply with different actions, making it harder for cross-border college students to return to U.S. campuses. This yr, the Department of Homeland Security mentioned it needed to finish a “length of standing” visa coverage that lets college students keep within the U.S. via the completion of their applications and restrict stays to 4 years. A federal decide blocked the change, and the federal government is interesting.
The Trump administration has additionally proposed charging schools $70,000 per scholar for Optional Practical Training, which lets cross-border college students work of their fields of examine for a restricted variety of years after commencement. Students now pay about $500.
In an announcement, a Stanford spokesperson mentioned the campus “complies with all relevant visa legal guidelines, together with these regarding J-1 visas. We will cooperate with the investigation.”
A UC Davis spokesperson mentioned the college “fastidiously complies with all federal legal guidelines and laws for visas and appears ahead to working with our federal companions to verify compliance.”
A Caltech spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
About 275,000 individuals began J-1 applications in 2025, down from 301,694 in 2024, in line with State Department knowledge. Trainees and momentary summer season staff, comparable to au pairs and summer season camp counselors, additionally use the visa to enter the U.S.
Most weren’t at universities, with a majority working summer season jobs.
The Trump administration’s crackdown has began to dissuade college students from coming to the U.S., with consultants anticipating a drop of their registration when knowledge for 2025 are launched subsequent month.
New analysis students fell 27% from 2024 to 17,622, about half the 2015 whole. Most new analysis students in 2025 got here from China, adopted by South Korea and India.
California drew essentially the most analysis students, 3,211. It ranked second behind New York for all new J-1s in 2025, with 23,167.
The State Department vets candidates and approves sponsors. Research students can keep as much as 5 years
Sarah Spreitzer, vice chairman and chief of employees for presidency relations on the American Council on Education, mentioned she had discovered little details about what the brand new probes would cowl. But she mentioned the federal authorities already has instruments “to determine fraud, each within the granting of the visa after which additionally monitoring the individual via the Department of Homeland Security.”
“I believe that each one of this stuff are targeted on bringing fewer cross-border college students into the United States, and now we have been seeing that affect,” she mentioned, anticipating “an enormous drop in our cross-border enrollment this yr, given the whole lot occurring.”
