US freezes visa filings by IT giants

Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities also face probes over alleged visa abuse The Trump administration on Thursday froze some green-card applications involving Microsoft, Adobe and major IT outsourcing companies and opened investigations into nine leading US universities, widening a crackdown on skilled-worker immigration aimed at preventing fraud and protecting American jobs. The Labor Department said it would not accept new or process pending permanent labour certification, or PERM, applications involving Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. PERM certification is required for most employment-based green cards and requires employers to demonstrate that hiring a foreign worker would not adversely affect US workers' wages or job opportunities. "There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft," Vice President JD Vance said. He accused the company of laying off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards. Vance's announcement came hours before President Donald Trump was due to award Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Microsoft said about 80% of the H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of existing employees rather than hire new workers. The company also said it pays H-1B employees the same as other workers doing comparable jobs. Vance said the suspensions would remain in place "as long as it needs to", arguing that some companies post ineffective job advertisements before citing a lack of applicants to justify hiring lower-paid foreign workers. Nasscom, India's IT industry body, said Indian technology companies in the US had significantly reduced their reliance on H-1B visas, while relatively few workers sought green cards through PERM.