Setback for IT giants: US suspends Microsoft, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL from green card programme

The US has suspended six major IT outsourcing firms - Cognizant, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini - from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) Program, Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced on Thursday.

Sonderling said the move targeted some of the world's largest IT outsourcing companies. The Department of Labor also suspended Microsoft and Adobe, citing multiple active federal investigations.

The permanent labor certification is a process through which an employer seeks certification from the US Department of Labor that it has tested the US labour market and could not find a qualified, willing US worker for the position. It is generally part of the process for sponsoring a foreign worker for permanent residence (a green card).

Vance targets H-1B programme

US Vice President JD Vance accused major American companies of abusing the H-1B visa programme to use cheaper foreign workers and replace American employees.

"The H-1B visa program is meant to allow companies to bring in really the best of the best from outside the United States of America for positions that are completely impossible to fill with American workers," Vance said.

"Unfortunately, the program has become rife with fraud over the last several years, probably the last several decades," he added.

Vance singled out Microsoft, saying: "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft."

Vance's Microsoft claim

Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers in 2025 after certifying that it could not find qualified American employees.

At the same time, he said, Microsoft was approved for more than 6,000 H-1B visas and filed 3,682 PERM applications. Nearly 1,000 of those applications were for the same positions as the American workers who had been laid off.

"You bring in indentured servants from outside the country, you lay off American workers, and if you're a corporation, you make a ton of money by undercutting the wages of American workers, replacing them with people who, frankly, shouldn't be in the United States of America to begin with," Vance said.