U.S. Suspends Microsoft, Adobe and Major Indian IT Firms From Green-Card Sponsorship Program

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (TodayViralUSA) — The Trump administration indefinitely suspended Microsoft, Adobe and a slate of large Indian information-technology firms from a federal program that lets employers sponsor foreign workers for permanent U.S. residency, accusing the companies of abusing a pathway that has long fed Silicon Valley and Wall Street talent pipelines.

Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move Thursday at the White House. The suspensions also cover Cognizant Technology Solutions, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini — firms that often provide contract IT labor to American clients.

Sonderling said multiple federal investigations are underway into how employers use the Permanent Labor Certification, or PERM, system. “We are cutting off the head of the snake — the companies that enabled this abuse for decades,” he told reporters.

Vance singles out Microsoft

Vance reserved his sharpest criticism for Microsoft, the world’s third-most-valuable company. “There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” he said. He argued that the company should thrive by “employing and empowering” American workers rather than what he called importing indentured labor.

Microsoft said it looked forward to giving the administration more information and defended its record: of roughly 6,000 H-1B applications in the most recent fiscal year, the company said 80 percent were to extend or change the status of existing employees, not to hire newcomers. New-employee filings, it said, equaled about 1 percent of its U.S. workforce.

Labor Department data cited in coverage showed Microsoft filed about 1,680 PERM petitions through the third quarter of fiscal 2026. Through the same period, Microsoft ranked among the top H-1B users, trailing Apple, Infosys, Tata and Amazon.

Broader crackdown on legal pathways

The PERM suspensions came the same day the administration said it opened fraud probes into J-1 exchange visas at nine universities, including Harvard, Stanford and MIT. Hours later, President Trump honored Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella with a National Medal of Technology and Innovation at a White House science summit — underscoring the tension between the administration’s courtship of tech investment and its immigration hard line.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat, called the move a blunt attack on legal immigration. “You don’t fix a broken immigration system by taking a hammer to legal immigration,” she said, warning that targeting Microsoft or PERM weakens U.S. innovation.

Microsoft shares fell more than 1 percent Thursday. Industry group Nasscom said many Indian IT firms have already reduced H-1B dependence and argued that skilled talent mobility should not be conflated with broader immigration debates.