‘Shutting the Door on Talent’: Newsom Attacks Trump’s Legal Immigration Curbs

California Governor Gavin Newsom has criticised the Trump administration’s restrictions on legal immigration, warning that closing pathways for foreign talent would undermine the American economy.

“You don’t make America stronger by shutting the door on talent. You invest in American workers and attract the world’s best and brightest,” Newsom said in a statement posted by his press office on X on Thursday.

“Donald Trump is taking a sledgehammer to legal immigration and undermining our economy—all to distract from his own failures,” the statement added.

His remarks followed the US government’s decision to suspend several technology and IT outsourcing companies from the Permanent Labour Certification Program, known as PERM. The programme is a step towards employment-based green cards for eligible foreign workers.

TECHNOLOGY FIRMS FACE SUSPENSION

US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the suspensions, naming Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. The Labour Department also suspended Microsoft and Adobe, citing multiple active federal investigations.

Sonderling said the companies had collectively requested almost three million foreign workers since 2009 and received more than 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labour certifications. He characterised those approvals as jobs taken from American workers.

The administration has defended the measures as part of its effort to protect US workers. Vice President JD Vance, responding to Democratic Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on Thursday, wrote on X: “‘Socialism’ apparently means fighting like hell to ensure mega-corporations have a never-ending flow of cheap labour.”

At an earlier news conference on visa fraud, Vance described H-1B workers as “indentured servants” and accused corporations of using foreign recruitment to replace Americans and suppress wages.

He claimed that H-1B workers earned $20,000 less than American citizens in comparable positions, with the gap rising to $48,000 for workers brought in by foreign outsourcing firms.

DEMOCRATS WARN OF DAMAGE TO INNOVATION

Jayapal, the top Democrat on the House Immigration Subcommittee and a former H-1B visa holder, said the suspensions would weaken legal immigration and America’s ability to innovate.

She said PERM provides a defined route towards employment-based permanent residency, with safeguards intended to ensure that hiring foreign workers benefits the economy without harming American jobs.

“You don’t fix a broken immigration system by taking a hammer to legal immigration,” she wrote on X.

Jayapal, who represents tens of thousands of Microsoft workers, said targeting the company or the programme would undermine efforts to build a stable workforce through legal immigration while protecting US employees from unscrupulous employers.

The suspensions were announced a day after the Department of Homeland Security proposed new fees for F-1 students seeking to participate in Optional Practical Training, which allows eligible international students to gain work experience related to their studies. The department said the proposal was intended to protect American workers and strengthen the integrity of the immigration system.

With inputs from ANI