The US Wants Big Tech to Hire Americans, And Skilled Foreign Workers Are Paying the Price

For years, the deal for a foreign software engineer in the U.S. has been simple. Come in on a temporary H-1B visa, do good work, and your employer sponsors you for a green card. The visa gets you in the door. The green card is why you stay.

That deal just broke for people working at some of the biggest companies in tech. The US Labor Department says it won't accept new applications from nine companies or process the ones already in the queue.

On October 8, 2026, Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCLTech and Capgemini were suspended from PERM, the labour certification process employers use to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency.

USCIS Backlog Hits 11.3M as Denials Climb to 12.2%

USCIS took in 2.1 million new cases last quarter and finished fewer than 1.8 million, the queue grew while people waited.

TechloyTreasure Ayanfe Adetula

Why did the US suspend companies from the PERM program?

The official reason is said to be because of 'fraud'. Officials say these companies have been using the program to swap American workers for cheaper foreign hires and push down wages, though they haven't made public the evidence behind those claims.

The crackdown has been building for months. In July, the Labor Department's Inspector General opened an investigation into alleged abuse of the H-1B and PERM programs, looking at things like fake recruitment, wage kickbacks and keeping visa workers unpaid between projects. In September, Cognizant and Cloudera had their PERM filings frozen, and public data showed Adobe's pending cases sitting on hold weeks before the company was named. What started as an investigation has now become a policy lever.