Labor Department Suspends Microsoft and Seven Other Firms From PERM Green Card Program, Hours Before Trump Honors Nadella

Over the past five months, the White House anti-fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance has expanded from benefits fraud into the skilled-worker visa system. On Thursday, Oct. 8, it hit a company that employs 223,000 people worldwide.

The Labor Department suspended eight companies from the Permanent Labor Certification program, known as PERM: Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. The department said it will not accept new applications or process pending ones involving those companies while the suspensions remain in place.

PERM is the step where an employer sponsoring a foreign worker for permanent residency must show that not enough qualified Americans are available and that the hire won't hurt the wages of similar U.S. workers.

Vance's case against Microsoft

Vance singled out Microsoft. "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft," he said at a White House news conference.

He said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards. "If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants," he said.

Vance also described how he says the system gets gamed. Companies advertise a job in a small-town newspaper, he said, then cite the lack of response as proof no American wants it. He added that H-1B workers earn less than Americans in the same jobs and must leave the country if they lose their jobs.

The administration says it is investigating Microsoft for alleged H-1B violations and for discrimination based on citizenship and national origin. Vance said the PERM suspension follows an ongoing investigation. Those are allegations. No findings have been published.

Microsoft's response

Microsoft disputes the picture. A company spokesperson said roughly 6,000 H-1B applications were filed in the last fiscal year, and that 80 percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees, not to bring in new hires.

The company said it files H-1B petitions only for workers who meet the visa's requirements, and that H-1B employees doing comparable work receive comparable pay. It also said the "vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans."

That 80 percent figure is Microsoft's own, and the administration has not said it is wrong. The two accounts measure different things. Vance compared layoffs to visas and green cards obtained. Microsoft is talking about the share of applications that involved people already on its payroll.

The wider crackdown

Sonderling said the eight companies collectively made nearly 3 million foreign-worker requests since 2009. That produced more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications. He called them "hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers."

Sonderling also said investigations under the task force have uncovered $22 billion in fraud and more than 200 convictions over five months. Those numbers come from the administration and cover the task force's work across programs, not only visas.

The Labor Department's inspector general separately announced investigations into nine universities over possible J-1 visa fraud: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and MIT. Subpoenas have already been issued. Vance said the schools used the J-1 program in greater proportions than their counterparts.

The day before, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee for international students in the Optional Practical Training program. Under the proposed rule, schools would pay it for every student who participates.

Medals the same afternoon

The politics got awkward within hours. At a White House ceremony that afternoon, Trump presented Nadella with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He made no statements about Microsoft's hiring of foreign workers.

"For more than three decades, Satya Nadella has been a key figure in the transformation of Microsoft," Trump said. Nadella thanked Trump on X for the "incredible honor." His post did not mention Vance's accusations.

Asked about the contradiction, Vance said, "We're going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft."

Trump also gave the National Medal of Science to Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su. Michael Dell received the other Technology and Innovation medal. Five of the six honorees were born outside the U.S.

The administration's stated position is that it can tell the superstar immigrants who could lead groundbreaking companies from the unexceptional hires that it says hurt U.S. workers. Vance framed it as a warning to firms rather than a break with them. "We want you to continue to grow and to employ a lot of people," he said, "but we want you to employ American workers."

What comes next

The suspensions remain in place for now. The sources do not say what Microsoft or the other seven firms must show to have them lifted, how long the Microsoft investigation will run, or whether any charges or penalties are planned.

For Microsoft, the fight is over whose numbers describe its hiring: the 6,300 visas and 3,000 green cards Vance cited, or the 80 percent of applications it says were for current employees.