U.S. suspends green card path for H-1B workers at Microsoft and Adobe — labor certification program blocked due to alleged fraud

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.