US suspends permanent residency program for Microsoft, Adobe and other tech companies
The US government has suspended several technology companies’ access to an H-1B visa program for skilled international workers. Microsoft and Adobe are the two biggest tech brands targeted by today’s announcement. The other five companies whose programs have been frozen are Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. “We will not accept any new applications for permanent labor certification involving these companies, nor will we process any pending applications,” Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said.
Vice President JD Vance’s announcement claimed that targeted companies had abused federal programs that allow workers on H-1B visas to apply for green cards. He alleged that companies intentionally under-advertised job openings domestically in order to seek international employees rather than hiring U.S. citizens and specifically called Microsoft a violator.
“They will use this lack of response to then replace American workers with foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. “Unfortunately, no company in the United States has used this system more than Microsoft.”
Reuters reported that according to statistics from the US Department of Citizenship and Immigration Services, Amazon is the top employer of H-1B visa recipients, followed by Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Apple and Microsoft.
In a statement, Microsoft emphasized that “the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans.” For example, of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted last fiscal year, 80 percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees.
“Microsoft only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards for this visa category,” the company said. We have also reached out to Adobe for comment on the situation and will update this article if we receive a statement.
In August, the Justice Department obtained a $3.2 million settlement from OpenAI over similar allegations that it under-advertised job openings domestically and “preferred workers on temporary work visas.” Similar cases were also filed and settled against Meta in 2021 and Apple in 2023.
Relatedly, the government also announced that it would investigate nine higher education institutions, including Harvard University, Yale University, and Stanford University, for similar alleged abuses in the J-1 visa programs for international students.
