JD Vance clarifies ‘indentured servants’ remark amid H-1B visa row

US Vice-President JD Vance on Sunday clarified his controversial description of H-1B visa workers as “foreign indentured servants”, acknowledging that his “rhetoric may have been imperfect” and calling for a balance between immigration and protecting American workers.

Referring to his Indian in-laws, Vance expressed his love for his wife’s parents, who immigrated to the United States from South India, amid the ongoing row over the US administration’s immigration policies.

“I love my mother-in-law and father-in-law who immigrated from South India,” he said, adding that their daughter, who was born in the United States, was now the second lady and that he was proud of her.

Vance acknowledged that his “rhetoric may have been imperfect” but maintained that the US immigration system must balance respect for foreign workers with the interests of American employees.

He argued that companies should not be allowed to claim they cannot find suitable workers locally while dismissing existing employees and recruiting foreign professionals instead.

“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 labour pool, and when you're doing that, you fire an accountant that was already on the payroll. That's not fairness,” he said.

Vance added that such practices were not good for either immigrant workers or American employees, stressing the need to strike the right balance in the country's immigration system.

The controversy comes amid the Trump administration's suspension of several companies, including Indian IT firms, from the Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme earlier this month. PERM is the first step in the green card process, allowing employers to sponsor eligible foreign workers, including H-1B visa holders, for permanent residency.

India had earlier strongly criticised Vance's comparison of Indian and other foreign professionals to “indentured servants”, describing the remarks as unwarranted and deeply offensive.

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India's Ministry of External Affairs said the description ignored the contributions of Indian professionals to the US 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.

New Delhi also expressed concern that the US administration's freeze on green card filings by major Indian IT companies, including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Infosys, ran counter to the shared ambitions of the two countries.

Source: Hindustan Times