Trump Suspends Microsoft, Adobe and Six Other Tech Giants from Green-Card Program

The Trump administration has suspended eight major IT companies

By Mara Quinn | October 10, 2026

The Trump administration has suspended eight major IT companies, including Microsoft and Adobe, from the federal PERM labor-certification program, cutting off their primary pathway for sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency. Vice President JD Vance announced the action on October 8, 2026. The Department of Labor will stop processing PERM applications from the named companies, effective immediately.

The move is one of the sharpest direct interventions in Big Tech's hiring infrastructure in recent memory.

What PERM is and why it matters

PERM, which stands for Program Electronic Review Management, is the Labor Department process companies must complete before sponsoring an employee for an employment-based green card. It requires employers to demonstrate that no qualified American worker is available for the position. Without a cleared PERM application, the green-card pipeline stalls entirely.

For large tech employers, PERM is the backbone of how they retain skilled foreign nationals already working in the country on H-1B visas. Suspending it for a company freezes the status of workers already mid-process, sometimes years into multi-stage green-card cases.

The administration's allegation

The stated basis for the suspensions: the affected companies laid off American workers while continuing to hire foreign nationals on H-1B visas, according to Reuters. The administration framed this as a violation of the program's intent, which is to protect domestic workers from displacement.

CNBC reported that Microsoft and Adobe are among the eight companies named, though the full list has not been officially published in a single comprehensive release. The companies have not yet issued detailed public responses.

Whether the legal basis for the suspensions holds under administrative review remains an open question. PERM is a regulatory process, and suspensions of this scale are unusual enough that litigation is a realistic near-term outcome.

What this means for affected workers

The immediate impact falls on foreign nationals currently in the PERM pipeline at these companies. Many of them are Indian-born engineers on H-1B visas who have waited years, sometimes more than a decade, for green-card priority dates to become current. A PERM suspension doesn't end their legal status, but it freezes their path to permanency and, in practice, limits their ability to change jobs or negotiate freely.

For these workers, the suspension feels closer to a trap than a policy adjustment.

The broader crackdown context

This suspension fits a pattern. The Trump administration has moved aggressively on foreign-worker programs since returning to office, tightening H-1B approvals, increasing visa denials, and pushing a broader "hire American" framing across agencies. ABC News reported that Vance personally announced the suspensions, a signal of how high in the administration this action was prioritized.

Targeting companies of Microsoft's and Adobe's scale, rather than smaller staffing firms that are more typically scrutinized, marks a clear escalation. It suggests the administration is willing to use PERM access as direct leverage against the largest players in the industry.

What the companies face next

The suspended companies have limited immediate options. They can challenge the suspensions administratively or in court, but those processes take time, and the Labor Department has broad discretion over program access. In the meantime, their legal and HR teams will be managing significant anxiety among current employees in the green-card pipeline.

Internally, these companies also face a harder question about their H-1B and PERM strategy going forward, especially if the administration signals it intends to expand the list of suspended companies or make suspensions a recurring enforcement tool.

The impact of PERM suspensions

The PERM suspensions are a direct hit to the hiring and retention infrastructure of some of the largest technology employers in the country. If the suspensions hold and expand, they will reshape how Big Tech recruits globally, how it retains current foreign-national employees, and how it prices the risk of building a workforce that depends on federal program access.

The administration has made clear it is prepared to use that access as a policy tool. The companies now have to decide how to respond.