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JD Vance acknowledged that his “rhetoric may have been imperfect” but defended the broader argument.
US Vice President JD Vance. (File photo)
US Vice-President JD Vance clarified his controversial description of H-1B visa workers as “foreign indentured servants”, invoking his South Indian in-laws while calling for a balance between welcoming foreign professionals and protecting American workers.
JD Vance acknowledged that his “rhetoric may have been imperfect” but defended the broader argument that US companies should not be allowed to replace American employees with foreign workers when suitable domestic candidates are available.
“You know where my family comes from, and I love my mother-in-law and father-in-law who immigrated from South India, and obviously their daughter, born in the United States of America, is now the second lady, and I’m very proud of her, and I love her very much,” JD Vance said when asked about his earlier remarks.
His wife, Usha Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.
The Vice-President stressed that the US immigration system needed to strike a balance between respecting people who wanted to contribute to the country and ensuring that their employment did not come at the expense of American workers.
“I think that we can have a respect and a welcome to people who want to contribute to the United States of America…but also recognize that if you’re a major corporation – let’s say you’re a trillion dollar company and you bring in somebody, an accountant, and you say that you cannot hire an accountant from your existing labor pool, and when you’re doing that, you fire an accountant that was already on the payroll. That’s not fairness,” he said.
JD Vance argued that such practices were unfair to American workers and could also disadvantage foreign employees.
“I do think that we can strike that balance in the right way. I think that our immigration system has to balance,” he added.
Earlier this month, JD Vance urged US companies to hire more American workers while announcing the suspension of several firms from the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme, the first step in the employment-based green card process.
“Stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do,” JD Vance had said. The companies suspended from the programme included major technology firms such as Microsoft, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL and Capgemini.
PERM certification allows eligible employers to sponsor foreign workers for employment-based permanent residency, subject to labour certification and other immigration requirements. The suspension affected a process used by companies seeking to retain foreign professionals in the United States.
India had strongly criticised JD Vance’s description of foreign professionals, calling the remarks “unwarranted and deeply offensive”. The Ministry of External Affairs said the characterisation overlooked the contributions made by Indian professionals to the American economy and innovation ecosystem.
“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.
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Ask News18JD Vance defended his description of H-1B visa workers as foreign indentured servants by invoking his South Indian in-laws and noting that his wife was born in the United States, while emphasizing the need to balance welcoming foreign talent with protecting American workers.
Ask News18Delhi, India, India
October 18, 2026, 12:39 IST
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