SAO PAULO (AP) — A Brazilian Supreme Court justice issued a warrant on Thursday for the arrest of Eduardo Bolsonaro, one of the brothers of presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. Eduardo Bolsonaro was sentenced in June to four years in prison for lobbying the Trump administration.
Bolsonaro, a 42-year-old former lawmaker who lives in Texas and is a green card holder, was sentenced for lobbying to impose sanctions against members of the Brazilian government and implement higher tariffs on the country’s exports during the trial of his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, for a coup attempt. The U.S. and Brazil have had an extradition agreement since 1961, but it wasn't immediately clear whether the terms would apply.
His lawyer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. Members of the Trump administration have never made comments about Eduardo Bolsonaro's conviction.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes' decision came less than three weeks before a runoff for the country’s presidency between incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, who won the most votes in the first round on Sunday. Eduardo Bolsonaro has been a key link between his brother and the Trump administration.
De Moraes, who the Bolsonaro family regards as a political enemy, also canceled Eduardo Bolsonaro's Brazilian passport. The judge chaired the investigation that led to Jair Bolsonaro being sentenced last year to 27 years in prison for a coup attempt, but has since been involved in corruption accusations.
The justice said in his ruling that Eduardo Bolsonaro should start serving his sentence immediately and warned the country's federal police that he should be arrested if he returns to Brazil.
“The defendant cannot benefit from his own wrongdoing by fleeing the national territory to an unknown location for the purpose of thwarting the application of criminal law,” the judge said.
Eduardo Bolsonaro has lived in the U.S. since 2025, which has caused him to lose his seat in the Brazilian National Congress and his job as a federal police investigator because of his long absence.
The Trump administration would have to approve an extradition request for Bolsonaro, which is unlikely, said Raphael Vieira da Fonseca Rocha, a law professor at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora.
Due to the unlikeliness of an extradition being granted, “requesting it through the existing diplomatic channels of international legal cooperation would weaken the Supreme Court,” Fonseca Rocha said.
He said the Supreme Court probably won’t even try and instead appeared to be applying pressure by cancelling his passport.
The former lawmaker gave his brother's presidential bid a boost on May 26 by taking him to the White House to meet Trump. At the time, Flávio Bolsonaro was under fire for his confessed links to a disgraced banker, which analysts believed could derail his candidacy.
AP journalist Eléonore Hughes contributed to this report from Rio de Janeiro.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
FILE - Eduardo Bolsonaro, a member of the Brazil Chamber of Deputies, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration announced Thursday it was suspending Microsoft and several other firms from a program allowing foreign workers to apply for green cards as it also lashed out at universities that bring international students to the U.S. on exchange programs.
The announcement by Vice President JD Vance marks the latest swing from the Trump administration at employers and universities that welcome foreign students and workers into the country.
Such programs have frequently been targeted by some Trump supporters who argue they undercut American students and workers. Supporters say they allow the U.S. to attract the best talent from around the world and fill important hiring gaps.
Supporters of the Republican president have long argued that various programs like H-1B visas — which Vance accused Microsoft of abusing — essentially empower American companies to recruit foreign workers for jobs that end up undercutting Americans. In the wide-ranging announcement, Vance and other top administration officials also called out universities over their use of J-1 visas for international students and information technology outsourcing firms.
The announcement came hours before Trump awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, part of an event at which he granted some of the nation’s most prestigious science and technology awards to his tech billionaire allies.
Vance said the program from which Microsoft is being suspended requires companies to advertise jobs in America before applying to the Department of Labor to show they need to give a foreign worker a green card because of a lack of American workers.
“They’ll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper. They’ll go out there and say that ‘We have advertised for a position with our company, and nobody is responding to it.’ And they will use that lack of response to then go and replace American workers with what is effectively foreign indentured servants," Vance said. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft."
Microsoft is No. 5 among U.S. employers when it comes to using H-1B visas, according data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Amazon is No. 1.
Vance said Microsoft last year laid off 6,000 American workers but also obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
“If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants,” Vance said in a White House news conference announcing the decision. “Our message to Microsoft is: You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”
Vance said H-1B workers are effectively foreign indentured servants because if they lose their jobs, they have to leave the country, and they earn less than Americans in the same position.
Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington, said of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% were “to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.”
“These were not to hire new people,” Microsoft said in a statement. “The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. workforce. They are not new arrivals to our country.”
The company added that it only files H-1B petitions for “those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category.”
Doug Rand, a former senior adviser at USCIS during the Biden administration, called Vance's announcement “incoherent.”
“If the Trump administration were truly concerned that H-1B workers are ‘indentured servants,’ then the last thing they would do is block companies from helping their own H-1B workers get green cards,” he said. "Once you have a green card, you’re no longer dependent on your employer for your immigration status — you’re a permanent resident who can change jobs and negotiate higher wages without fear.”
The H-1B program has long been a target of Trump supporters who say that the program undercuts American workers and is rife with abuse.
H-1B visas are meant for high-skilled jobs that are difficult to find American workers to fill. Technology companies are the biggest users, with nearly three-quarters of approvals going to workers from India.
Trump last year attempted to ratchet up the fee for H-1B work visas to $100,000, saying it would protect American workers from losing their jobs to lower-paid foreigners, but a federal judge struck that down in June.
The administration has since tried a different tack, announcing plans in August for a $103,265 fee. The proposed regulation described the new fee as a “dedicated revenue mechanism to help recover a portion of the federal government’s costs of administering the lawful immigration system.” The rule isn’t yet final and is expected to face a legal challenge, like the one before it.
Ron Hira, a Howard University political science professor and longtime critic of the H-1B program, called the move against Microsoft “very significant.’’ Hira noted the White House last month issued a little-noticed executive order directing government agencies to “implement appropriate measures to protect American workers from abuse of the H-1B program and ensure that the program serves the national interest.’’
“There are supposed to be protections for U.S. workers that say: If you hire an H-1B, you are promising that you are not adversely affecting similarly employed U.S. workers,’’ Hira said. “That’s never been enforced.’’
Besides Microsoft, Vance said the government was similarly suspending Adobe and tech consulting firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini. The companies did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
The Vance announcement came a day after Trump's administration launched another broadside against international students and their ability to work in the U.S.
The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday proposed a $70,000 fee for international students seeking to work in the United States. The proposed rule would require schools to pay the fee for every student who participates in the Optional Practical Training program, which allows students to work in jobs related to their major during or after their time in school.
Vance also called out universities, suggesting that they were abusing a program to allow international students to come to the U.S. These temporary visas, called J-1 visas, allow international visitors to temporarily come to the U.S. for work and study exchange programs.
Vance singled out nine universities that he said merited further investigation for J-1 visa fraud, saying they used the program in greater proportions than their counterparts.
The universities were Harvard; Yale; Stanford; Brown; the University of Pittsburgh; the University of California, Davis; the California Institute of Technology; Arizona State; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stanford said it would cooperate with the investigation.
MIT and Brown said they had received and were reviewing subpoenas from the government related to programs for foreign workers.
Associated Press writers Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas, Kelvin Chan in London and Paul Wiseman, Annie Ma and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed. Ortutay reported from Oakland, Calif.
Vice President JD Vance speaks as Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, from left, and Attorney General Todd Blanche listen during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Vice President JD Vance speaks as Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling listens during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella walks to the White House to attend a state dinner hosted for China's President Xi Jinping, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, listens as Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Vice President JD Vance speaks during a news conference on the Fraud Task Force inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
