Oct. 8 (UPI) — The Department of Labor Thursday announced it would suspend Microsoft and Adobe from the U.S. “green card” Permanent Labor Certification program as the Trump administration continues a crackdown on foreign labor.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the department also won’t accept or process any new green card applications under the program for Cognizant, Infosys, Capgemini, Tata, Wipro and HCL.
Sonderling said Adobe and Microsoft were also suspended “due to multiple active federal investigations.”
“Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers. They’ve received over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications. That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers,” Sonderling said.
“The Department of Labor is taking historic action by shutting down the pipeline of systemic fraud,” he said at a press conference while appearing with Vice President JD Vance, who is in charge of the White House’s anti-fraud efforts.
Vance mentioned Microsoft’s 6,000 layoffs in 2025, asserting the company “replaced” those workers with foreign workers on H-1B visas.
“So, we’re going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we’re also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first,” Vance said.
Microsoft, however, pushed back on those accusations, arguing that the “vast majority” of its employees in the United States are Americans and that 80% of its applications to the H-1B visa program last year were to extend or change the status of existing employees.
“Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category,” a company said in a blog post. “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. We pay our H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work.”
At the same event, Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito announced an investigation into “visa fraud involving nine major American universities.”
He listed the University of Pittsburgh, Harvard University, Stanford University, Brown University, the University of California at Davis, the California Institute of Technology, Arizona State University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“Subpoenas have been served, investigations are underway and nobody will be getting a free pass because their name is carved into an expensive building,” D’Esposito said.
At the same summit where Sonderling and Vance made the announcement, President Donald Trump is scheduled to award the National Medal of Science to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other tech leaders.
Nadella is from India and came to the United States in 1988. He was hired at Microsoft in 1992.
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