The Trump administration on Thursday suspended several major technology companies, including Microsoft, Infosys, Cognizant, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Capgemini and Adobe, from the US Permanent Labour Certification Programme, accusing companies of abusing the system used to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency.
US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move alongside Vice President JD Vance and the head of the US Anti-Fraud Task Force at a briefing in Washington. Sonderling said the Department of Labour would stop accepting new applications and processing pending permanent labour certification applications involving the companies.“I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labour Certification Programme some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini,” Sonderling said.
He added that Microsoft and Adobe would also be suspended from the programme ‘Stop defrauding the American worker’
Vance accused the companies of making allegedly illegitimate representations when applying for the labour certification programme.
“The fraud is that they’re making representations when applying for this program that are fundamentally illegitimate and therefore ultimately illegal,” Vance said.
The vice president specifically singled out Microsoft, saying no US company had “abused this system more” than the software giant.
“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft,” Vance said.
He urged the affected companies to change their hiring practices and employ more US workers.
“Stop defrauding the American worker. Stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do,” Vance said. Vance also clarified that the administration did not intend to harm Microsoft.
“Microsoft is a great American company, and we have a great relationship with them, they do a lot of important things,” he said. “Our message to Microsoft is not that we want to harm your company. It’s that we want your company to thrive, but we want it to thrive by employing and empowering your fellow Americans.”
Suspensions to be indefinite
Vance said the suspensions would be indefinite, suggesting that the companies would remain barred from the programme until the administration’s concerns were addressed.
Sonderling also said multiple active federal investigations were underway in connection with the issue.
The Permanent Labour Certification Programme, commonly known as PERM, allows US employers to seek certification to sponsor eligible foreign workers for employment-based permanent residency, including workers who may have entered the country through the H-1B visa programme. The latest action could therefore affect the ability of the named companies to advance certain green-card applications for foreign employees.
US cites millions of foreign workers
Sonderling said the companies targeted by the administration had collectively sought nearly three million foreign workers since 2009.
“Since 2009, just these companies alone have requested almost three million foreign workers. They’ve received over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labour certifications,” he said.
Sonderling argued that the scale of foreign-worker hiring had come at the expense of American employees.
“That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers,” he said.
The companies named by the administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump administration steps up immigration crackdown
The suspension is the latest move by the Trump administration targeting both legal and undocumented immigration pathways.
The technology industry’s reliance on foreign workers, particularly through the H-1B visa system, has become a major point of contention in the US immigration debate.
The administration and its allies have pressed technology companies to train and hire more American workers. Trump has also moved to make the use of H-1B visas more difficult for companies seeking to recruit foreign talent.
(With PTI, Bloomberg inputs)
