Trump Admin Blocks Tech Companies from H-1B Perm Program

The administration announced a suspension of several major tech and IT services firms from the PERM permanent labor certification process, barring them from filing new green-card applications for H-1B employees. Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling framed the move as a crackdown on companies that allegedly use H-1B visas to undercut American workers and enable fraud, highlighting Microsoft as an example - citing roughly 6,000 layoffs last year alongside about 6,258 H-1B approvals and 3,157 PERM filings. Adobe and Microsoft were singled out as having active federal investigations, while outsourcing firms including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini were also suspended. Officials said current PERM petitions from those firms will not be processed and no new filings will be accepted.

Reactions split along ideological lines: Microsoft defended its practices, emphasizing a largely American workforce and high wages for H-1B hires and said it would provide more data; immigration advocates applauded the enforcement; libertarian critics and immigration experts argued the Labor Department lacks legal authority to suspend firms without proven violations and warned that blocking green-card sponsorship would leave high-skilled workers more vulnerable and damage business operations. Vance called for congressional reform of the H-1B-to-green-card pipeline rather than wholesale elimination, with reformers urging wage and shortage-based limits to prevent displacement.