U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance speaks at a press conference for the Task Force on Fraud held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 8, 2026.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
In an official government statement released on Friday, India criticized US Vice President J.D. Vance’s comments regarding immigration from India, calling them “highly offensive.”
Vance said Thursday that the Trump administration wants foreign and local companies to “hire American workers” and “cannot lay off American workers and replace them with foreign indentured servants.”
He was speaking as the U.S. Department of Labor announced it would suspend Microsoft, Adobe, and several large Indian information technology companies from the Permanent Work Certification Program, meaning those companies will not be able to apply for permanent residency for their employees with H-1 B visas.
According to official data, about 70% of H-1B beneficiaries in 2025 will be born in India.
In a statement Friday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs accused Vance of using “terminology that carries connotations of painful historical and colonial legacies.”
“Such statements are unfair and ignore the fact that Indian professionals in the United States are highly educated and skilled contributors to the economic and innovation ecosystem,” the statement said.
Vance’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC.
Vance criticized Microsoft, accusing the company of replacing 6,000 laid-off workers with people on H-1B visas.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs assured its citizens that the measures announced by the US will not affect the validity of existing H-1B visas or the status of H-1B visa holders and their dependents.
“The mobility of talent brings value to our economies,” the statement said, adding that the suspension “does not advance our countries’ shared ambitions.”
Expanding recruitment in the US
Indian companies affected by the ban include: I recognize, infosysCapgemini, Tata Consultancy Services, wipro and HCL.
IT industry group NASSCOM said in a statement that Indian technology companies have “significantly reduced their reliance on H-1B visas” in recent years and expanded their domestic hiring of U.S. employees.
Tata Consultancy Services, India’s largest IT company, said its H-1B filings have remained in the “single digits” for the past two years and it intends to hire 15,000 more people in the U.S. over the next five years.
In June, a federal judge blocked payment of the $100,000 H-1B visa fee imposed by President Donald Trump last year.
