US suspends eight tech firms from green-card labour process

• The companies named are Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini.¹
• Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling said the department would accept no new PERM applications involving them or process pending ones.¹
• PERM is a labour-certification step on some employer-sponsored green-card routes; the suspension is not an H-1B ban.²

The decision, announced on 8 October by Vice-President JD Vance and Sonderling, could delay or block affected employees’ employer-sponsored route to permanent residency. The Department of Labour’s PERM process requires employers to test whether qualified, willing and available US workers can fill a job before the employer moves on to an immigration petition.³

That is a different process from the H-1B visa, which allows skilled workers to work temporarily in the United States. The announcement does not itself cancel existing H-1B visas or revoke green cards already granted. Its practical effect depends on where each worker is in the process; the public accounts do not spell out how already-certified cases or later-stage applications will be treated.²

The administration cast the action as part of a crackdown on alleged abuse of foreign-worker programmes. Vance accused Microsoft of replacing laid-off American workers with foreign employees. The Washington Post reported that he presented no evidence for that specific claim at the announcement.⁴

Microsoft said about 80% of roughly 6,000 H-1B filings it made in its last fiscal year were extensions or changes of status for existing employees. The company said its remaining filings for new hires concerned people already legally in the US. That is Microsoft’s account of its filings, not an independent finding about the administration’s allegations.⁵

The suspension’s duration and precise legal basis remain unclear. The reports examined describe officials’ announcement, but do not set out company-specific written orders or how the department will handle every category of pending case.

Footnotes

1. Associated Press, “The Trump administration is suspending Microsoft from a green card program, alleging fraud”. ↩ ↩²

2. Axios, “H-1B visas aren’t suspended. Here’s what Vance is really targeting”. ↩ ↩²

3. US Department of Labour, “Permanent Labor Certification (PERM)”. ↩

4. The Washington Post, “Trump officials block Microsoft’s access to program for employee green cards”. ↩

5. Microsoft, “Comment on Recent Immigration Questions”. ↩