US halts permanent visa sponsorships for Microsoft and Adobe

Federal officials suspended the green card program for major technology companies and opened wage inquiries into nine universities.

The federal government suspended Microsoft and Adobe on Thursday from a labor certification system that employers use to sponsor foreign staff for permanent residency in the United States.¹² Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the action during a joint briefing, barring both software companies alongside six global technology outsourcing firms from submitting new filings under the Permanent Labor Certification Program.¹²

The suspension cuts off access to the primary regulatory pathway companies use to obtain employment-based green cards, known across the industry as the PERM system.²¹ Under federal rules, employers seeking permanent status for foreign staff must first test the domestic labor market to establish that qualified American workers cannot be found for the roles.¹² Processing those filings took an average of 336 calendar days as of August, according to Labor Department figures.¹

Vice President JD Vance singled out Microsoft during the announcement, alleging that the company had manipulated the recruitment requirements to substitute overseas personnel for domestic staff.²¹ “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vance said on Thursday.³²

Vance argued that corporate employers frequently circumvent the spirit of the labor test by placing job notices in obscure publications.² “They'll put an advertisement in a small-town newspaper,” Vance said.² “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.”²

Vance also claimed that recent reductions in domestic headcount were offset by foreign hiring.¹ “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.¹

Federal filing records show Microsoft submitted 1,504 certified PERM applications during the first three quarters of the fiscal year, more than any other employer in the country.¹ An additional 174 certified filings were submitted across two of its primary corporate subsidiaries, LinkedIn and Activision.¹ Adobe filed 168 certified applications across the same nine-month period.¹

The administration paired the sanctions on domestic software developers with immediate restrictions on major international contracting providers.²¹ Sonderling said the Labor Department suspended Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini from the PERM program, citing active federal inquiries into their operational practices.²¹ “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,” Sonderling said.²

The enforcement effort expanded into higher education during the same announcement.¹ Vance stated that federal investigators had opened reviews into nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, over allegations that the schools used J-1 cultural exchange visas to depress domestic wages.¹ Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito stated that administrative subpoenas had already been served to the institutions.¹

The regulatory clash landed against an awkward schedule at the White House.²¹ Just hours after the morning announcement, President Donald Trump was scheduled to present the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella.² Just over a week earlier, Nadella sat two seats away from Vance during an executive luncheon focused on artificial intelligence.¹

Microsoft rejected the administration's characterization in a corporate statement issued on Thursday, stating that the company welcomed the opportunity to supply federal officials with additional staffing data.²¹ The company stated that the vast majority of its domestic staff are American citizens, citing annual disclosures that show 125,000 employees based in the United States and 103,000 international workers.²¹

The company also detailed its reliance on specialty work visas, noting that roughly 80 percent of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa petitions it submitted during the prior fiscal year were filed to extend or alter the legal standing of current employees rather than recruit candidates from abroad.¹ The remaining petitions covered professionals who were already legally residing in the country and represented about 1 percent of its total domestic workforce.¹

“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,” Microsoft stated in its response.² Adobe did not issue a public response to the Labor Department's suspension order on Thursday.¹

What this rests on

31 sentences trace to 3 sources.

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1. 1 BI Business Insider Third-party reporting · businessinsider.com · 8 Oct 2026 Vance says the US is suspending permanent visa residency program for Microsoft See the source
2. 2 DW Deutsche Welle Third-party reporting · dw.com · 8 Oct 2026 US suspends Microsoft, Adobe from filing for green cards See the source
3. 3 KT Kate Taylor Document · wired.com · 8 Oct 2026 Trump Administration Cuts Off Access to a Major Immigration Program for Workers at Microsoft and Adobe See the source