Overview
- On Thursday, Oct. 8, the administration told the Labor Department to stop accepting or processing PERM applications tied to Microsoft, Adobe and six large IT outsourcers while investigations proceed, and said subpoenas were served to nine universities over J-1 visa use.
- PERM is the Labor Department step employers use to certify that hiring a foreign worker for a green card will not harm U.S. workers, so the suspension can block the usual route from H-1B temporary status to permanent residency for affected employees.
- Vice President J.D. Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the moves respond to alleged fraud and misuse, with officials accusing Microsoft of laying off thousands of American workers while hiring H-1B employees and filing large numbers of PERM cases.
- The firms named include Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, and the nine universities under subpoena include Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Brown, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State and the University of Pittsburgh.
- Officials framed the actions as part of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud and linked them to other policy steps under consideration, such as higher OPT fees for students, and investigations now underway could reshape hiring, green-card timelines and research staffing at targeted institutions.