The U.S. Department of Labor said it is suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the Permanent Labor Certification program. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move as the administration continues to tighten its stance on immigration and foreign hiring ahead of the November midterm elections.
Sonderling said the department will also stop accepting and processing new applications under the program from several other companies, including Cognizant, Infosys, Capgemini, Tata, Wipro and HCL. He said Microsoft and Adobe were suspended because of “multiple active federal investigations.”
According to the labor secretary, those companies alone have requested almost 3 million foreign workers since 2009, received more than 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and obtained more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications. He argued that the total represented hundreds of thousands of jobs taken from American workers.
Vice President JD Vance singled out Microsoft, pointing to the company’s 6,000 layoffs in 2025. He claimed the firm “replaced” those workers with people on H-1B visas and said Microsoft would be blocked from applying for permanent residencies through the program until it showed it was serious about putting American workers first.
Microsoft pushed back in a statement, saying the vast majority of its U.S. employees are Americans. The company said that of the roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% were for extensions or status changes for existing Microsoft employees. It also said petitions are filed only for workers who meet the rigorous standards of the visa category.
The announcement came at the same summit where President Donald Trump was set to award the National Medal of Science to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other technology leaders. Those being honored also include Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su.
