Why Microsoft, Infosys and six more were blocked from new PERM filings

Vice President JD Vance announced the PERM suspensions for the eight firms on a Thursday in early October. The administration framed the move as a response to alleged visa abuse and a way to protect American workers.

Vance singled out Microsoft, accusing it of replacing laid-off American employees with lower-paid foreign workers, and described foreign workers hired by the company as “indentured servants”. He said the suspension would last “as long as it needs to”. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling confirmed the department would neither accept new applications from the eight nor process those already filed.

Microsoft is by far the biggest user of the program. In the fiscal year to September 2025, the Labor Department ruled on 3,161 of its PERM applications, more than any other employer. By comparison, it ruled on 39 from Amazon and three from Google.

PERM, short for Permanent Labor Certification, requires an employer to show there aren’t enough qualified US workers available for a job and that hiring a foreign worker won’t hurt the pay or conditions of similar American employees. In fiscal 2025, nearly 140,000 PERM applications won certification across every employer, and about 30% were for software developers, systems analysts and data scientists.

The suspension doesn’t cancel anyone’s H-1B visa, and it doesn’t change the status of visa holders or their families. What it blocks is the employer-sponsored path to a green card at these eight companies, and pending cases there are frozen too.

Immigration lawyers say the people most exposed are H-1B holders close to the visa’s six-year limit. Green card progress is often what lets them extend their stay. One Atlanta lawyer, Loren Locke, expects most workers can either ride out the freeze or find time to change employers, but that’s cold comfort for anyone near the deadline.

The Indian IT firms say their own exposure is small. Infosys told stock exchanges it doesn’t expect a material impact. TCS said it has filed only a handful of PERM applications in each of the last two years, and it plans to hire 15,000 more local employees across 31 US offices over five years. India’s IT industry body, Nasscom, says these companies have sharply cut their use of H-1B visas. Investors seemed to agree: Indian IT shares rose the day after the news, with TCS up 5.5%. Microsoft stock had slipped about 1% on the day of the announcement.

India’s foreign ministry hit back the next day. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said language with painful colonial connotations was deeply offensive and that the remarks ignored the contributions of highly skilled Indian professionals. He also said the US steps didn’t advance the shared goals of the two countries.

Microsoft pushed back harder about a week later. President Brad Smith called Vance’s claims “completely off base”. He said Microsoft pays immigrants and Americans on the same scale, that most of its green card applications are for long-time staff rather than new hires, and that it hired more than 9,000 US-born workers last year. He warned that blocking skilled workers from permanent residency could push the next wave of AI engineers to other countries, and pointed out that five of the six people honored with national technology and science medals at the White House were immigrants, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, a former H-1B holder.

Then Vance softened his tone. At a televised town hall that aired on Saturday, October 17, a voter accused him of scapegoating immigrants. He called his rhetoric “imperfect”, said “that’s on me”, and argued his real target was employers who hold too much power over workers whose visas depend on their jobs.

Under federal law, a suspension the Labor Department imposes by itself can last only 180 days. After an investigation, it can bar a company for up to three years. Lawyers expected court challenges to begin quickly.

The move also fits a wider tightening of skilled immigration, following a proposed $103,265 fee on new H-1B visas.

If you work at one of the eight companies and you’re on an H-1B, talk to an immigration lawyer now about your six-year date, whether a move to a different employer could keep a green card on track, and what happens to a pending case if the suspension ends. Watch for any lawsuit and for the 180-day mark, the legal limit on a suspension imposed without an investigation.