Trump administration suspends Microsoft and Adobe from green-card labor certification program amid fraud investigations

JD Vance and Keith Sonderling announced the suspension at a press conference on Thursday. Microsoft and Adobe were barred from the permanent labor certification program, which gives skilled foreign workers a path to an employment-based green card.

Sonderling, the labor secretary, said the Department of Labor will not accept or process any new or pending permanent labor certification applications involving the suspended companies. He said Adobe and Microsoft were suspended due to multiple active federal investigations. Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Cognizant, Capgemini, Wipro, and HCL were among the suspended firms. Tech companies are among the largest users of the H-1B program, and the administration accused the companies of fraud and of displacing American workers. Vance said the permanent labor certification program has become rife with fraud over the past several years.

Vance targets Microsoft over layoffs

Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers in 2025, and he accused the company of replacing those laid-off workers with foreign workers on H-1B visas. Vance said workers on H-1B visas make on average $20,000 less than US workers in the same position. He said that for every worker Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one-and-a-half foreign workers. “You cannot lay off American workers and replace them with foreign indentured servants,” Vance said. He said Microsoft obtained 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards. “Our message to Microsoft is: you’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers,” Vance said. He said the administration would continue to support Microsoft but would deny the company the ability to apply for permanent residencies until it shows it is serious about putting American workers first.

Sonderling said that since 2009, the suspended companies received over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications. He said the suspended companies requested almost 3 million foreign workers since 2009. The Department of Labor said it had uncovered $22 billion worth of visa fraud. “Today we are protecting something far more valuable than any dollar amount,” Sonderling said. “We are protecting the American worker.”

Microsoft pushes back

Microsoft said the vast majority of its US employees are Americans. The company said approximately 80 percent of its roughly 6,000 H-1B visa applications in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees, not to hire new people. Microsoft said the remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States, and they equal only one percent of its US workforce. The company said it pays its H-1B employees the same as any other employees doing comparable work, and that its wages are among the highest of all H-1B filings. Microsoft said it only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of the visa category. The company said it looks forward to providing the administration with additional information.

Adobe did not respond to requests for comment.

Broader immigration crackdown

The administration also announced a crackdown on alleged J-1 visa fraud involving nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Cal State. The suspensions are part of a broader Trump administration crackdown on immigration, including a recently announced price hike on H-1B visas. Nearly three-quarters of approved H-1B visas go to workers from India, according to the Associated Press.

Microsoft stock slumped 7.5 percent on the news. Adobe was up 4 percent in midday trading on Thursday. President Trump is set to award the National Medal of Science to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other technology CEOs on Thursday at the same summit where the suspension was announced.

Across the tech sector, there have been more than 131,000 layoffs in 2026 alone, according to Layoffs.fyi. Amazon had the highest number of H-1B petitions in 2026.