US authorities have suspended the acceptance and review of labor certification applications required for green cards for employees of eight technology companies. Among them are Microsoft and Adobe. The administration of President Donald Trump explains the decision by suspicions of abuses in hiring foreigners. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
The decision was announced on October 8 by US Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. Vance accused Microsoft of laying off American employees and hiring foreign specialists.
"Our message to Microsoft: you are a great American company, but you must hire great American workers," Vance said.
Microsoft did not comment on this at the time of publication.
Besides Microsoft and Adobe, the restrictions affected Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. According to Sonderling, the Labor Department will stop accepting new and reviewing already submitted applications from these companies for permanent labor certification.
The decision concerns the PERM program — one of the main stages of obtaining a green card through an employer. The company must confirm that hiring a foreigner will not worsen the wages, working conditions and employment opportunities of Americans.
The freeze may cut off foreign employees of these companies from one of the common paths to permanent residence in the US. According to Reuters, the decision does not appear to directly affect current holders of H-1B work visas.
At the same time, Vance announced inspections of nine universities, including Harvard, Yale and Stanford. The authorities suspect them of abuses of the J-1 exchange visa program. These accusations do not yet mean that violations have been proven.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that the US Supreme Court rejected Trump's attempt to limit the right to American citizenship by birth.