Trump Freezes the Green Card Pipeline at Microsoft and 7 Other Visa-Heavy Firms

Leave a CommentTrump Freezes the Green Card Pipeline at Microsoft and 7 Other Visa-Heavy FirmsEconomics, Government, Immigration

For years, the H-1B visa has worked as a waiting room for permanent residency. A company brings in a foreign worker on a temporary visa, then sponsors that worker for a green card. On Thursday, the Trump administration slammed that door shut at eight of the biggest users of the system.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced at a White House press conference that his department will stop processing green card labor certifications for Microsoft, Adobe and six outsourcing firms: Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, according to the Tennessee Star. Vice President JD Vance stood beside him.

“The Department of Labor is taking historic action by shutting down the pipeline of systemic fraud,” Sonderling said. Microsoft and Adobe were suspended “due to multiple active federal investigations.”

What was frozen

The program is called PERM, short for Permanent Labor Certification. It is the first step for most employer-sponsored green cards. A company must show the Labor Department that it could not find a qualified American for the job before it can sponsor a foreign worker to stay for good.

“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications,” Sonderling said. No end date has been set.

Immigration law firm Ellis reported that the rule likely behind the action lets the department pause an employer’s cases for up to 180 days during a fraud investigation, and can lead to a ban of up to three years.

The freeze does not cancel anyone’s existing H-1B visa, according to the Tennessee Star and a law firm FAQ reported by Business Standard. But for foreign workers in line for a green card through these companies, the line has stopped moving.

Hmmm….

The numbers behind the crackdown

According to the Labor Department, the eight companies have received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications, and together they have requested almost 3 million foreign workers since 2009, the Tennessee Star reported.

Vance singled out Microsoft. He said the company laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving about 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards. The White House said Microsoft filed 3,682 PERM applications, nearly 1,000 of them for the same positions as the laid-off workers.

“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vance said. His message: “You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”

Microsoft disputes the charge. A spokeswoman told Reuters that about 80% of its H-1B filings were for people already on staff and that H-1B employees are paid the same as others doing comparable work.

Americans pushed aside

The administration’s case rests on a simple point: when companies can bring in cheaper foreign labor and then keep it permanently, American workers lose.

That is not just theory. In 2024, a federal jury in Los Angeles found that Cognizant, one of the companies frozen out Thursday, engaged in a pattern of discrimination against non-Indian workers. The class action was brought by three employees who identified as Caucasian and said they were replaced by “visa-ready” workers from India, Staffing Industry Analysts reported. Cognizant said it would appeal and that it provides equal opportunity to all employees.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under Chair Andrea Lucas has made anti-American bias a priority. On September 30, it sued a Texas IT staffing firm, Sibitalent, after a recruiter allegedly sent an American job seeker a posting marked “ONLY H-1B” and then referred candidates of Indian and Nepali origin instead. “The EEOC’s mission is to ensure equal opportunity for all, which includes Americans,” Lucas said.

Ripple effects in North Texas

The H-1B crackdown is also being felt in suburbs that boomed on visa-holder demand. Dallas-Fort Worth had about 32,000 new H-1B approvals in the four years ending September 2024, second only to the New York City metro, according to Bloomberg data reported by India Weekly.

Now that market is cooling. Redfin data showed home prices in Collin County suburbs, including Frisco, Prosper and Celina, down almost 9% year over year in February, versus about 4% for the wider metro, the New York Post reported. Plano home values fell 5.1% over the past year, the Dallas Express reported.

Rates, rising inventory and tech layoffs also play a part, and the reporting relies heavily on interviews rather than hard proof of cause. But one Florida International University professor, Eli Beracha, told the Post that “H-1B visas are the No. 1 converters of potential homebuyers to actual homebuyers.”

The bottom line

The H-1B program was sold as a way to fill rare skill gaps. Instead, it became a conveyor belt from temporary visa to permanent residency, with a handful of giant firms at the controls. Too often, a green card handed out through that pipeline meant a job, and a career, that an American worker never got a real shot at.

The administration is not banning skilled immigration. It is telling companies that the right to keep foreign workers permanently depends on first treating American workers fairly. That is a reasonable price for access to the American labor market.

Cooler home prices in Plano and Frisco may sting for some owners. For American families who were priced out, a market that is no longer driven by visa demand may look like a chance to finally buy in.