U.S. Freezes Green-Card Labor Filings for Microsoft, Adobe and Six IT Giants
The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday suspended PERM permanent labor certification filings by Microsoft, Adobe and six IT services firms, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini, saying no new applications will be accepted and pending ones will not be processed. Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move at a White House press conference, accusing the companies of abusing visa programs to replace American workers with H-1B employees.
Vance said Microsoft laid off about 6,000 U.S. workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Sonderling said the eight companies have requested nearly three million foreign workers since 2009 and received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals. Labor Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito said subpoenas have been served on nine universities, including Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pittsburgh, Brown and UC Davis, over their use of foreign researchers. These are the government's allegations; Microsoft had not publicly responded as of Thursday.
The action expands a crackdown that began in September, when the Labor Department first suspended Cognizant's PERM filings. Officials announced no end date and no conditions for reinstatement.
For Chinese readers in the U.S., PERM is the first step toward most employment-based green cards (EB-2 and EB-3), ahead of the I-140 petition and the visa queue, the path many Chinese engineers rely on. Microsoft and Adobe employ large numbers of Chinese engineers, and the six outsourcing firms employ many foreign nationals. Employees of the eight companies whose employers were preparing or had filed PERM cases now face a frozen green-card process with no announced restart date. The suspension targets the labor-certification step; it does not by itself cancel existing H-1B status, and how already-approved I-140 cases will be treated has not been specified. Situations vary, so readers making personal immigration decisions should consult an immigration attorney.
It is the second tightening move this week affecting international talent, following the DHS proposed OPT rule. GSM will follow any responses from the companies and the Labor Department. (Compiled from Reuters and AP reporting.)
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Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 美国劳工部总部（华盛顿）/ Photo: Ajay Suresh via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
