U.S. suspends Microsoft and Adobe from the green-card labor certification program

The U.S. Labor Department indefinitely suspended Microsoft, Adobe, and six large information-technology outsourcing firms from the permanent labor certification program that employers use to sponsor foreign workers for green cards, Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said on Oct. 8, 2026.

Vance said Microsoft is one of a handful of companies barred from the Permanent Labor Certification program, known as PERM, after an investigation by the anti-fraud task force he chairs. The probe, he said, found that Microsoft laid off roughly 6,000 American workers last year while employing 6,300 non-citizens brought to the United States on H-1B visas. "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft," Vance said, according to CNN Politics.

Sonderling named Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini alongside the Microsoft and Adobe suspensions and said the department will not accept new permanent labor certification applications involving those companies or keep processing ones already filed, according to VisaVerge's account of the briefing. CNN reported that Adobe and several IT outsourcing firms are indefinitely suspended and that new or pending permanent-residency requests for their workers will not be considered. The action targets PERM green-card sponsorship, not current H-1B status, and officials did not set an end date.

How Microsoft answered

Microsoft published a same-day reply on its On the Issues blog. Of about 6,000 H-1B applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% were to extend or change the status of people already on staff, not to hire new workers, the company said. Filings for new employees were for people already legally in the United States and equaled only 1% of its U.S. workforce, Microsoft wrote. It said it pays H-1B employees the same as other workers doing comparable jobs and that its wages rank among the highest of H-1B filings.

Same-day medal, separate message

CNN noted that President Donald Trump was due the same day to award Microsoft Chief Executive Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Vance said the administration still wants Microsoft to thrive, but by employing Americans, and that PERM access stays closed until the company shows it will put American workers first.

Microsoft shares last traded at $522.61, down $7.15, or 1.35%, on the Nasdaq, according to quote data on cnbc.com after Thursday's U.S. cash session. Broader technology selling on Oct. 8 also weighed on the tape, so the move should not be read as a single-cause reaction to the PERM announcement alone.