Federal authorities withdrew visa eligibility under the H-1B skilled-worker pathway from a number of technology firms. Among the companies drawn into the announcement's scope, Microsoft and Adobe stood out as the two with the broadest brand presence in the sector.
Six firms — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini — had their permanent labor certification applications placed under a freeze, with Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling stating that neither new submissions nor those already pending from those companies would be processed or accepted.
In a statement, Vice President JD Vance put forward the position that the businesses under scrutiny had misused federal pathways permitting H-1B visa holders to pursue permanent residency. He contended that companies deliberately kept domestic job postings sparse so as to pursue overseas candidates instead of workers already residing in the country, and he directed particular attention toward Microsoft as one he regarded as a notable example of this practice.
In remarks attributed to him, Vance stated that companies exploit low response rates to domestic postings as a pretext for replacing those workers with foreign employees who hold visa-dependent status, and that no company had made greater use of this arrangement than Microsoft. That characterisation sits in tension with federal immigration data, which, according to figures from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, places Amazon at the top of H-1B visa sponsorship, ahead of Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Apple, and Microsoft.
A company statement from Microsoft conveyed that the overwhelming share of its United States workforce holds American citizenship, and expressed the company's intention to furnish the Administration with further details. Of the roughly 6,000 H-1B visa petitions filed by Microsoft during the most recent fiscal year, four out of every five were tied to renewing or adjusting the standing of workers already on the company's payroll.
The funds in question were designated for purposes other than bringing on additional staff. Those additional filings covered people already holding lawful status in the country who chose to join the organisation, and together they account for no more than one percent of the domestic workforce. The company noted in a statement that H-1B petitions it submits on behalf of workers cover only those who satisfy the established requirements of that visa category, adding that the workers in question had long been part of the country.
A $3.2 million settlement was reached with OpenAI by the Department of Justice in August over allegations that the company had steered hiring away from domestic applicants in favour of candidates holding temporary employment visas, a pattern of enforcement that had previously produced comparable settlements with Meta in 2021 and with Apple in 2023.
A federal review into the handling of J-1 visa programs for international students has drawn in nine universities, a group that includes Harvard, Yale, and Stanford among its members.
