India’s Ministry of External Affairs released a statement on Friday bashing a comment from U.S. Vice President JD Vance in which he referred to foreign workers on the H-1B visa program as “indentured servants.”
“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 Indian External Affairs Ministry said of Vance’s comments.
On Thursday, Vance held a White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud press conference in which he discussed investigations into alleged abuses of the U.S. H-1B visa program, which allows American companies to sponsor visas for specialized foreign workers. Vance discussed the task force’s investigation into Microsoft and said the Trump administration found that Microsoft laid off 6,000 workers in the last year while they benefited from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards.
“Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said during the Thursday press conference. “You cannot lay off American workers and then replace them with foreign indentured servants.”
India is the country of origin for an overwhelming majority of H-1B visa beneficiaries. About 73% of workers granted H-1B visas in 2023 were of Indian origin, according to data published by the Pew Research Center in 2025. The Indian External Affairs Ministry named Vance and specifically slammed the comments “by the US Vice President” in its statement.
“The history of the United States itself has been shaped by generations of immigrants whose labour, enterprise and innovation have contributed to its growth and prosperity,” the ministry said. “Resorting to terminology that carries painful historical and colonial legacy connotations is deeply offensive.”
VANCE ACCUSES MICROSOFT OF FRAUD AS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CLAMPS DOWN ON H-1B VISA ABUSE
Vance announced that the Trump administration would bar Microsoft from using the Program Electronic Review Management process to move employees on temporary H-1B foreign worker visas to green cards.
Vance also named IT companies Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini in the announcement.
