Microsoft Disputes Vance's PERM Abuse Claims as Eight Firms, Including Infosys and Wipro, Are Suspended

Since Vance and Sonderling announced the suspension at a White House news conference earlier today, Oct. 8, the details have sharpened: who is named, what the administration alleges, and where Microsoft says the government has it wrong.

Who is suspended, and what that means

Sonderling named eight companies: Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe. He described the first six as "some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world."

The Labor Department "will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labour certification applications involving these companies," Sonderling said.

PERM is the Labor Department certification an employer needs before filing for most employment-based green cards. The employer has to show no qualified, willing and available U.S. worker exists for the job. It sits downstream of the H-1B visa, which Vance described as how workers get into the country, with PERM as "how those employees stay."

For Microsoft and Adobe, Sonderling said the suspension stems from multiple ongoing federal investigations. The action falls under the U.S. Anti-Fraud Task Force, which Vance chairs. Attorney General Todd Blanche also took part in the announcement.

The administration's numbers

Sonderling said that since 2009 these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers. He said they received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications. "That's hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers," he said.

On Microsoft, Vance said the company laid off about 6,000 American workers in 2025 while holding roughly 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. He said the company filed 3,682 PERM applications, including nearly 1,000 for the same position.

"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. He called it "a fundamental INSULT to the American worker."

Vance also described how he says the system gets gamed: companies run job ads in a small-town newspaper, get no response, then cite that silence to justify sponsoring a foreign worker. The administration alleges Microsoft misrepresented its needs, claiming roles required "hyper-specialized" skills when it was swapping skilled Americans for similarly qualified, lower-paid immigrants.

These are allegations. No charges against any of the eight companies have been announced.

Microsoft pushes back

Microsoft disputed the account in a post on its website. The company said 80% of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees, not to hire new ones. The rest were for people already legally in the U.S.

"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 wrote. "We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work."

That answers the wage-undercutting charge, but not the layoff-versus-sponsorship comparison. Vance's math sets 2025 layoffs against visa and green card totals that, as he cited them, are not tied to the same year or the same jobs. The task force has not released the underlying analysis.

The same-day medal

The timing drew immediate questions. President Trump is scheduled to award Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in a separate ceremony today.

Vance downplayed the contradiction. He said the administration wants Microsoft to thrive, that the relationship with the company remains good, and that PERM access will stay shut until the company changes its behavior. Asked how long the suspension lasts, he said "as long as it needs to."

Universities next

The announcement came with a separate probe into exchange visitor visas. The administration alleges universities used the J-1 program to hire foreign nationals and cut the wages they would otherwise pay Americans.

The nine schools named are Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, MIT and Arizona State University. Like the PERM action, these are investigations, not findings.

Open questions for employers and workers

Immigration firm Envoy Global said the Labor Department has not issued detailed implementation guidance. It is unclear whether already approved labor certifications or pending immigrant petitions are affected. Envoy also said no process for reinstatement or timeline for the suspension has been provided.

That leaves thousands of foreign workers at the named companies in limbo, particularly those with PERM cases pending or about to begin. The suspension is indefinite by Vance's own description. The next concrete step is whether the Labor Department publishes rules for already-certified cases and what the companies must do to get back in.