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US Vice-President JD Vance has invoked his South Indian in-laws while clarifying his "indentured servants" remark on foreign workers, days after India condemned it as "unwarranted and deeply offensive". He also defended his immigration stance, calling for a balance between welcoming skilled immigrants and protecting American jobs.
Vance's remarks come amid a row over the Trump administration's restrictions on green card-related filings by several major companies, including Indian IT firms.
New Delhi,Oct 18, 2026 14:58 IST
US Vice-President JD Vance has clarified his “indentured servants” remark about foreign workers amid the H-1B visa row, invoking his South Indian in-laws and saying he loved them, days after India denounced his comments as “unwarranted and deeply offensive”.
Acknowledging that his “rhetoric may have been imperfect”, Vance defended his position on immigration, saying the United States needed to strike a balance between welcoming foreign workers and protecting the interests of American employees.
“I love my mother-in-law and father-in-law who immigrated from South India. 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,” he said.
Vance's remarks come amid a row over the Donald Trump administration's restrictions on green card-related filings by several major companies, including Indian IT firms. The controversy has put the spotlight on the role of Indian professionals in the US workforce and Washington's push to prioritise American workers.
Earlier this month, Vance had urged American companies to hire more domestic workers, asking them to “stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do”.
The Trump administration subsequently suspended several companies, including Microsoft, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL and Capgemini, from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) programme, which is the first step in the employment-based green card process.
The programme allows employers to sponsor eligible foreign workers for permanent residency.
The US Vice-President's remarks has drawn criticism for their historical implications. Indentured servants were contract-bound workers who often endured exploitative conditions with little freedom, in exchange for passage abroad, debt repayment or other obligations.
The term carries particular weight in India, where hundreds of thousands of Indians were sent to British colonies during the 19th and early 20th centuries to work on plantations in Mauritius, Fiji, the Caribbean and South Africa.
VANCE ON HIRING FOREIGN WORKERS
Explaining his remarks, Vance said the US could welcome people who wanted to contribute to the country while ensuring that immigration did not come at the expense of American workers.
He cited the example of a large corporation bringing in a foreign accountant after claiming it could not hire someone from its existing labour pool, while firing an American accountant already on its payroll.
“When you're doing that, you fire an accountant that was already on the payroll, that's not fairness. It's not good for the immigrant and it's not good for the American worker,” he said.
Vance argued that his position was not about rejecting immigrants but about ensuring that the immigration system served the interests of the country.
“I do think that we can strike that balance in the right way. I think that our immigration system has to balance,” he added.
Vice President JD Vance on immigration in the United States: “My goal here is to make it so that we can have a country with some baseline of social cohesion and sense of community I don't think it's unreasonable for an American citizen to want to share their community with people they have something in common with, and I think our immigration system has to build that.”— Vice President JD Vance (@VP) October 18, 2026
In a further explanation of his immigration stance, Vance said his goal was to preserve a baseline of “social cohesion and sense of community” in the United States.
He argued that when too many people enter the country too quickly, even if they are well-intentioned, the resulting demographic and cultural changes can profoundly affect communities.
Vance said some of his neighbours and friends did not know a single person in their neighbourhood who spoke the same language as them.
“That's not a criticism of anybody, but I don't think it's unreasonable for an American citizen to want to share their community with people they have something in common with,” he said.
He maintained that the immigration system should welcome people who could contribute to the country, while ensuring that the pace of immigration did not fundamentally transform the United States in what he described as a negative way.
INDIA CONDEMNED VANCE’S REMARK
India had earlier strongly criticised Vance's description of foreign professionals as “indentured servants”, calling the remarks unwarranted and deeply offensive.
The Ministry of External Affairs said the comments overlooked the contribution of Indian professionals to the US economy and its 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 raised concerns over the Trump administration's freeze on green card filings involving Indian IT companies, including TCS and Infosys, saying the restrictions ran counter to the shared ambitions of India and the United States.
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