During a Thursday announcement, Vice President JD Vance said that well-known tech companies Microsoft and Adobe are now blocked out of the PERM program — one of the possible paths for the firms' H-1B workers to eventually evolve to green card status. The move was triggered by alleged fraud and abuse. IT outsourcing firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini also got slapped with suspensions.
The companies involved have not yet commented.
The administration is not going to process any new or pending Permanent Labor Certification applications for the companies. In a press conference, Vance had harsh words about Microsoft in particular, stating that "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more." He added that "if you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants."
According to Vance, Microsoft fired 6,000 workers while simultaneously benefiting from 6,300 H-1B approvals and nearly 3,000 green cards. The VP said the company filed 3,682 PERM applications, 1,000 of which were for positions that seemingly overlapped with those of laid-off workers. Both Microsoft and Adobe's PERM privileges were cut "due to multiple active federal investigations," as stated by Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.
A move so swift and harsh is unusual, but it comes against a backdrop of the U.S. government putting a tighter grip on the H-1B program. Last July, the Labor Department launched a nationwide investigation into fraud and human trafficking in H-1B and PERM programs. The inquest focuses on fraudulent applications, wage kickbacks, coercion, below-wage labor, recruitment abuse, and benching — when a company keeps the H-1B employee on the books but doesn't assign them work or pay them.
In September, President Trump signed an executive order aiming to curb abuse of the H-1B program. Cognizant also had its green card filings suspended during that month. The H-1B lottery rules had already changed to reportedly favor highly skilled, highly paid workers.
According to the National Foundation for American Policy and reported estimates, Amazon had the most approved H-1Bs in fiscal year 2025 with 4,644 visas, followed by Meta at 1,555, Microsoft with 1,394, and Google at 1,050.
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Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
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Ralston18 said:Interesting....
Wondering about the "The move was triggered by alleged fraud and abuse".
"alleged" ???
Sources? Details?
Not taking any sides - just would like to hear and read more facts.I don’t think the feds have disclosed evidence or details. What’s weird is there seems to be no lawsuit against either Microsoft or adobe which in my opinion should come first then a judge can hand down a preliminary injunction Reply