The US government has put Microsoft, Adobe and several large IT outsourcers on hold in a key green card program, and the news landed with a thud in the tech world. The Microsoft green card freeze came on Thursday, together with probes into nine top universities. Officials say the aim is to fight fraud and protect American jobs.
For many foreign tech workers, it may close a common road to permanent residency.
Who is affected, and why
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the suspension covers Microsoft and Adobe, along with Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. The department won’t accept new permanent labor certification applications from them or process pending ones. These PERM filings are required for most employment-based green cards, and employers use them to show a foreign hire won’t hurt US workers’ pay or jobs.
Vice President JD Vance singled out Microsoft, saying it laid off 6,000 American workers last year while using 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. He added that the pause will last as long as needed, and that companies should change how they hire. Microsoft replied that about 80% of its H-1B filings last fiscal year extended or changed the status of current staff, and that H-1B employees get the same pay as comparable colleagues.
A mixed signal on the same day
Hours later, President Trump honored several tech leaders, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who once held an H-1B visa himself. Nadella thanked Trump on X for the medal.
US immigration policy for tech workers: the bigger picture
This isn’t an isolated step. It follows a broader effort to reduce the number of foreign-born people in the US, and it comes after last year’s one-time $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions for workers hired from abroad. For anyone tracking US immigration policy for tech workers, H-1B and green card delays now look like part of a pattern.
Indian industry body Nasscom said its member companies have cut their reliance on H-1B visas and rarely use PERM for green cards.
Universities under the microscope
Nine universities, among them Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown and MIT, face investigations over alleged misuse of exchange-visitor visas. Subpoenas are already out. Investigators will look at foreign influence, financial ties and visa abuse in federally funded research. The American Council on Education warned of a big economic impact, noting international students once spent about $40 billion a year in the country.
What to watch next
Plenty is unresolved: how long the pause lasts, whether the targeted firms change their hiring, and how courts and Congress react. For engineers planning a move, it may be a good time to compare options abroad. Looking at technology companies in Europe can show what hiring looks like outside the US, and browsing tech jobs is a quick way to see which skills employers want right now.
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