Microsoft and Capgemini face new PERM ban for green‑card filings

The PERM suspension covers Microsoft, Adobe, Capgemini, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies. Vice President JD Vance announced the Microsoft suspension, and Sonderling named the other seven at the same event.

These are some of the biggest users of the system. Sonderling said the eight firms have received more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications since 2009, plus 230,000 H-1B visa approvals. In the first three quarters of this fiscal year, Microsoft filed 1,504 certified PERM applications, more than any other employer, with another 174 filed for LinkedIn and Activision. Adobe filed 168 over the same period.

Capgemini is the only European company on the list. The Paris-based consultancy employs about 421,000 people, and North America is its fastest-growing region, worth 29% of group revenue.

PERM is the step where an employer proves to the government that no qualified, available US worker can fill a job before it sponsors a foreign worker for a green card. The name comes from the Labor Department’s online filing system.

It is slow even in normal times. In August, the average PERM case needed 336 calendar days to clear, by the department’s own count. Many workers start on a temporary H-1B visa, which usually lasts up to six years, and use a pending PERM case to extend their stay beyond that limit. That is why a freeze on PERM can hurt even though it does not touch H-1B visas directly.

The administration accuses the companies of using foreign hiring to push out American workers. Vance pointed to Microsoft, saying it laid off about 6,000 US workers last year while benefiting from about 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards in the same period. He said the suspension will last as long as it needs to, and that the goal is to change how these firms hire.

The move is part of a wider investigation. The Labor Department’s inspector general opened a nationwide H-1B and PERM fraud probe in July, citing fake applications, wage kickbacks and “benching” (keeping visa workers on unpaid standby). In September it held new filings from Cognizant and the data company Cloudera. Separately, the Justice Department reached a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI over how it advertised PERM jobs.

Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito also announced investigations into nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and MIT, over their use of J-1 exchange-visitor visas. He said subpoenas had already been served.

Microsoft rejects the charge. The company says roughly 80% of the H-1B applications it filed last fiscal year were for existing staff extending or changing their status, not new hires, and that it pays H-1B workers the same as colleagues doing similar work. Microsoft President Brad Smith later called Vance’s accusations “completely off base” and warned the crackdown could damage the US tech sector for years.

Tata Consultancy Services declined to comment. The other six firms, from Adobe to Capgemini, had not replied to questions at the time of the announcement.

If you are a visa worker at one of these eight companies, your green-card case is paused, not cancelled. Your current visa status does not change because of the suspension. The risk is time. A worker close to the six-year H-1B limit without an approved labor certification could run out of room, and one immigration lawyer said someone in that spot might start looking at other employers.

For everyone else, the bigger signal is that immigration compliance has become a front-line legal risk for any company that sponsors foreign staff. Expect employers to be more cautious about sponsorship, and expect some hiring plans at large tech and consulting firms to slow while this plays out.

If you are affected, keep copies of every document tied to your case, ask HR exactly where your PERM application stands, and talk to an immigration attorney about your H-1B timeline.

Under the law, an initial suspension lasts up to 180 days and can be extended. A suspension is not a finding of guilt. Debarment, the actual penalty, is a separate step that would follow a finding of fraud or related violations, and it can shut an employer out of PERM for as long as three years. Official records shows only two companies currently debarred from PERM, and neither is among the eight.

No criminal charges have been brought in the labor investigation so far. Attorney General Todd Blanche said at the press conference that the path forward depends on the case.