US Halts PERM Filings for Microsoft, Adobe and Other Tech Firms: Thousands of Foreign Workers Face Losing Green Card Path

The US government has decided to remove several of the world's leading technology companies from the program that allowed them to sponsor skilled foreign workers for permanent residency. The decision was announced as President Donald Trump's administration continues to tighten immigration, both legal and illegal, and make the path to citizenship harder.

According to Vice President JD Vance, the move is meant to counter companies abusing the system to hire foreign workers at lower wages, harming American workers. The new measure, however, also directly affects thousands of foreign workers, many of whom have waited years for their backlogged cases to be resolved.

The PERM program and its role in the green card system

The program suspended is Permanent Labor Certification (PERM), which allows US employers to sponsor green cards for foreign workers. To qualify, employers must show there are not enough American workers available for the position and that hiring a foreign worker will not affect wages or working conditions for American workers in the industry.

PERM is a key step in the green card process for many skilled foreign workers. Large tech companies typically hire staff on temporary H-1B visas before they move to permanent residency through PERM.

Fraud allegations and the administration's response

Speaking at a White House press conference, Vice President Vance accused large companies of abusing the existing visa regime to replace American employees with lower-paid foreign workers, whom he called "indentured servants." He said: "The program has become riddled with fraud," adding that many workers who first came on H-1B visas and later sought permanent residency through PERM "are mistreated by their employers" and "are used to drive down the wages of American workers."

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling used similar language, saying Washington would "shut down the pipeline of systemic fraud that has poured into this country." He said the fraud did not stop at getting a job — that job became a pathway for foreign workers and their families to stay in the US permanently and eventually become American citizens.

Which companies are affected?

Vance named Microsoft specifically as a serious violator and said the company would be suspended from the PERM program. Other companies whose PERM applications have been halted include US software maker Adobe and several of the world's leading information technology firms such as Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. Among them, Capgemini is French, Microsoft and Adobe are American, while Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL are all Indian.

Secretary Sonderling said: "We will not accept new permanent labor certification applications or process any pending applications involving these companies." Vance said the suspension would last "as long as necessary." Some other companies that rely heavily on H-1B visas, such as Meta, Amazon and Alphabet's Google, will not be affected.

Are tech companies abusing US immigration law?

Critics of the H-1B visa and the PERM green card process argue that some employers use the system not to fill legitimate skills gaps but to cut labor costs, gaining leverage over workers and making it harder for American employees to compete for jobs. They say companies do this by hiring foreign workers at lower wages and manipulating hiring requirements to screen out qualified American workers.

Vice President Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year but still obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. "If you do the math, for every American worker Microsoft laid off, they replaced them with one and a half indentured servants from abroad," he said. Secretary Sonderling said the companies suspended from PERM had received more than 230,000 H-1B visas and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications since 2009. "That is hundreds of thousands of jobs taken from American workers," he said.

Microsoft pushed back on the implication that its visa filings represent new employees replacing American workers. In a statement, the company said 80 percent of its roughly 6,000 H-1B visa applications last year were "to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees," not for new hires, and that the remaining applications were for "people already legally in the US." It also said it only files for people who "meet the strict standards of this visa category" and that those employees are paid the same as others doing similar work.

Impact on foreign workers

The suspension could make it harder for foreign workers in the tech industry to obtain permanent residency in the US. Many of those affected are likely to be Indian citizens, a group that makes up a large share of America's skilled foreign workforce in technology.

Only 85,000 new H-1B visas are available each year, not counting renewals, but applications run into the hundreds of thousands. Many H-1B visa holders work in tech: 62 percent of beneficiaries in fiscal year 2025 held computer-related jobs. Indian citizens account for roughly 70 percent of current H-1B visa holders.

The Trump administration had previously sought to tighten the H-1B program and in August proposed a new $103,000 fee for H-1B applications, after an earlier similar proposal was struck down by a federal court. The government argues the fee raises revenue to run America's vast immigration system while reducing the incentive to abuse the H-1B visa.

But the new move to restrict the path to green cards for foreign workers already legally in the US could affect not only those who dream of working or living in America but also thousands already in the country.

The US typically issues about 140,000 employment-based green cards a year, but also imposes strict per-country caps: applicants from any one country cannot receive more than 7 percent of the green cards issued in a year. Because the employment-based green card system is mainly used to convert H-1B visa holders into permanent residents, Indian applications are disproportionately high relative to population share.

As a result, nearly one million Indians legally in the US on work visas are now stuck in the employment-based green card queue. They make up 79 percent of the roughly 1.25 million people waiting for green cards. Even before the latest move, according to a 2025 analysis for the US Congressional Research Service, some Indian applicants in certain job categories could face waits of decades.

Secretary Sonderling's statement that the US would not process "any pending permanent labor certification applications" from the blacklisted companies has raised fears that tens of thousands of legal foreign workers, most of them Indian, who have waited years could suddenly become ineligible. For others, the wait could grow even longer.

How has India responded?

India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that the US suspension of the program does not "advance the shared aspirations of the two countries." It said "increased mobility of talent adds value" to both the Indian and US economies, including by providing American companies with "cutting-edge talent, innovation, research, productivity, competitiveness and job creation."

India's Ministry of External Affairs also criticized Vice President Vance's comparison of foreign workers to indentured servants as "inadequate" and "deeply offensive," saying his language evoked "painful connotations from historical and colonial legacies." British, Dutch and French colonial powers once brought more than 1.6 million Indian workers to plantations and railway construction sites in other colonies such as Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana and many Caribbean nations as indentured laborers.

India's Ministry of External Affairs said Vance's description also "ignores the reality that Indian professionals in the US are highly educated and contribute their skills to the American economy and innovation ecosystem."