US suspends Microsoft, Adobe from filing for green cards

The Trump administration on Thursday said it was suspending major tech firms, including Microsoft, from applying for a program that allowed their foreign workers to work permanently in the US.

US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling accused those tech firms of abusing the program — the Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM) — that had so far been a legal pathway for workers to apply for green cards.

"I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labor Certification Program some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini," US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said.

Sonderling said the suspensions were due to ongoing federal investigations into those firms.

There are good reasons that Indian media firms covered the issue so urgently because many of those firms are either Indian or rely on thousands of Indian professionals who've moved to the country.

Trump administration accuses Microsoft of abusing program for green cards

Vice President JD Vance said the PERM system required companies to advertise work in the US before they applied for green cards for foreign workers due to a lack of qualified American job applicants.

"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 claimed.

"There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has used this system more than Microsoft," Vance said.

The announcement came hours before US President Donald Trump was scheduled to award the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Microsoft says majority of its workers are Americans

Microsoft said in a statement that it looked forward to providing the administration with additional information, saying the majority of its workers are Americans and that a large part of the H-1B filings have to do with the status of people already based in the US.

"We pay our employees some of the highest compensation in the tech sector, and our wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings," the company said.

The H-1B visa program is another part of the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration, as concerns have long persisted that the visa for skilled workers has displaced Americans in favor of lower-cost foreign labor.

Microsoft employs 125,000 US workers and 103,000 international workers, according to the company's 2025 annual report.

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