The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft, Adobe and several other technology and IT-services companies from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program, the first step most employers take to sponsor a skilled foreign worker for a green card. "Our message to Microsoft is: You're a great American company, but you've got to hire great American workers," Vice President JD Vance said at a news conference on Thursday.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the government "will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies." Alongside Microsoft and Adobe, the suspension covers Capgemini, Cognizant, HCL, Infosys, Tata and Wipro. Vance also said the administration would investigate nine universities — among them Harvard, Yale and Stanford — over allegations they abused a program for international students.

Vance singled out Microsoft as the worst offender, saying "there has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft." In response, a Microsoft spokesperson said the "vast majority" of its US employees are Americans, and that of roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it submitted last fiscal year, 80% were to extend or change the status of existing employees rather than make new hires. The company said new-employee filings were for people already legally in the US and amounted to about 1% of its US workforce.

The move lands in the middle of a fierce national argument over the H-1B program, which tech companies rely on heavily — nearly three-quarters of approved visas go to workers from India, according to the Associated Press. Freezing PERM processing for some of the largest users of the system delays, rather than ends, their employees' path to permanent residency.

Sources