On Oct. 8, 2026, the Trump administration announced PERM-processing suspensions for Microsoft and seven other employers. Officials said the Department of Labor would stop accepting new and processing pending applications involving the companies, amid investigations into alleged fraud.
What officials announced
The eight employers named were Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. The announcement described a suspension of PERM applications involving those employers, covering both new filings and applications already pending.
PERM is a labor-certification step, not an H-1B visa
PERM is the Department of Labor’s permanent labor-certification process, used in most employment-based green-card cases. In general, an employer obtains this certification before filing an immigrant petition with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).
The certification process includes a labor-market test: the Department of Labor must determine that there are not enough U.S. workers able, willing, qualified and available for the job, and that hiring the foreign worker will not adversely affect similarly employed U.S. workers’ wages and working conditions. The department’s PERM program description outlines those requirements.
An H-1B visa, by contrast, is a temporary work visa category. The announced action addressed PERM processing; it did not announce the cancellation of existing H-1B visas.
Allegations and Microsoft’s response
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the affected employers were under investigation for alleged fraud. Vice President JD Vance separately accused Microsoft of abusing the system.
Microsoft said about 80% of roughly 6,000 H-1B applications it filed in its last fiscal year were extensions or status changes for existing employees. The company said the remaining filings for new employees concerned people already legally in the United States and represented 1% of its U.S. workforce.
What the announcement means for workers
The reported halt concerns the PERM certification step. For employment-based green-card cases that rely on PERM, that step generally comes before the employer can file an immigrant petition with USCIS. The announcement does not itself determine where employers will locate jobs.
