The United States Department of Labor suspended on October 8, 2026 the permanent labor certification, known as PERM, for eight tech companies, including Microsoft and Adobe, the prior step that allows an employer to sponsor a foreign worker's green card.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said his agency will not accept new applications or process pending ones from Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini, Bloomberg Línea reported. Vice President JD Vance said at a press conference that these companies used the program to hire foreign workers below local market wages. The measure matters to Mexico and Central America in two ways: part of the region's technical talent works at these firms on H-1B visas, and several of them operate software development centers on Mexican soil. The announcement adds to other measures by the US administration on work visas.
Sonderling specified that the eight companies have accumulated more than 230,000 H-1B visas and more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications since 2009, according to Al Jazeera. Vance said Microsoft laid off about 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and close to 3,000 green cards. Microsoft responded that 80% of its roughly 6,000 H-1B applications corresponded to extensions or status changes for current employees, not new hires. The suspension does not cancel valid visas or revoke green cards that have already been issued: it blocks the PERM path to permanent residency, and Vance indicated it will remain in place with no end date.
The United States issues around 140,000 employment-based green cards each year and only 85,000 new H-1B visas, with a cap per country of origin. With that path closed at the eight firms, the trend points to technical talent that does not obtain residency in the United States looking toward service centers in Mexico. The administration announced in parallel investigations into nine universities over the use of J-1 visas.
This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.