Vice President JD Vance suspended Microsoft and Adobe from a key permanent-residency program Thursday, accusing the tech giant of replacing laid-off Americans with foreign workers and vowing the freeze will last until firms put U.S. employees first.
In a Washington press conference, Vance announced that both companies are barred from the PERM certification that lets employers sponsor H-1B visa holders for green cards. The move freezes their ability to convert temporary foreign workers into permanent U.S. residents through that channel.
Vance, who leads the administration’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, framed the action as a direct response to what he called long-running abuse of programs meant only for roles American workers cannot fill.
ABC News reported the announcement came the same day President Donald Trump honored Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the Medal of Technology and Innovation at the Institute of Peace.
Vance did not soft-pedal the numbers he put on the table.
"Now there has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused the system more than Microsoft."
He added that Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards.
"In other words, if you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants."
That contrast sits at the center of the administration’s case. The H-1B program, Vance said, was designed for “the best of the best” in jobs “completely impossible to fill with American workers.” Instead, he argued, it has grown “rife with fraud over the last several years, probably the last several decades.”
PERM is the labor certification that allows an employer to hire a foreign worker permanently in the United States. Suspension from it blocks the usual bridge from an H-1B temporary visa to a green card. Vance said the freeze on Microsoft and Adobe will “last as long as it needs to,” and that the administration holds “a number of tools to suspend it indefinitely” if firms refuse to change course.
He struck a careful note on the broader relationship with Microsoft even as he cut off the sponsorship path.
"Microsoft is a great American company, and we have a great relationship with them. They do a lot of important things. So we're going to continue to support Microsoft and have a great relationship with Microsoft, but we're also going to deny them the ability to apply for these permanent residencies until they show that they are going to get serious about putting American workers first."
Adobe received the same suspension. The company had not issued a public response at the time of the report.
Microsoft pushed back hard on the fraud charge. In a statement, the company said it “succeeds as a global technology leader by developing the world’s best technology workforce” through a mix of “strengthening this country’s talent pipeline, hiring American workers, and attracting the best talent from around the world.” It added that “the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans,” that it “only files H-1B petitions for those who meet the rigorous standards of this visa category,” and that it pays H-1B workers the same wages as comparable U.S. employees, among the highest in the sector.
Attorney General Todd Blanche made clear the PERM suspensions are not the only tool in play. He said the Department of Justice is already investigating companies that “discriminate against an American worker in favor of someone on the other side of the world,” calling that practice a violation of “the trust of the federal government and the American people.”
"The Department of Justice, my department, is actively investigating companies that do this that favor foreign workers over the American people."
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito announced a separate “historic investigation into the J-1 visa fraud involving nine major American universities: Pitt, Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Brown, UC Davis, CalTech, Arizona State, and MIT.” Those probes, he said, are already underway.
D’Esposito left little room for academic excuses.
"If an American university is breaking the law to save a dollar, while exposing American research to a foreign adversary, that is not academic excellence. It's institutional betrayal."
The twin tracks, corporate PERM suspensions and university J-1 scrutiny, signal a broader enforcement push aimed at both private employers and research institutions that rely on foreign temporary workers.
Hours after Vance’s criticism, Trump awarded Nadella the Medal of Technology and Innovation during the Golden Age of American Innovation Summit at the Institute of Peace. Trump praised Nadella as “a key figure in the transformation of Microsoft, revolutionizing the company and empowering businesses, students and consumers from all over the world with some of the most capable software ever built or ever even conceived.” Other honorees included Michael Dell, Lisa Su, Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, and Sergey Brin.
The optics were deliberate: credit for technological achievement, zero tolerance for what the administration calls labor substitution. Vance’s team is treating the two as separate questions, innovation deserved recognition; alleged displacement of American workers did not. Readers tracking Vance in his official role will recognize the same blunt style he has brought to other administration initiatives.
For American workers who watched tech layoffs pile up while visa sponsorships continued, the numbers Vance cited land with force. Six thousand U.S. jobs cut. More than six thousand H-1B visas and nearly three thousand green cards secured in the same window. Whether those figures ultimately hold up under investigation, the administration is no longer treating the pattern as business as usual.
The crackdown also keeps Vance firmly in the policy spotlight as Republicans already look ahead to 2028. Speculation about his future has drawn early positioning from other conservatives, including coverage of how Ted Cruz has tested the waters against him.
Inside the party, debate continues over whether to lock in a successor early. Some voices have urged caution, a point underscored when Rove warned Republicans against coronating anyone without a real primary fight.
Others see fresh contenders emerging around Vance’s orbit, with reports that Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt has risen as a possible running-mate name. The visa enforcement push gives Vance a concrete record to point to on jobs and borders, issues that travel well with the voters who put the ticket in office.
Even personal security remains part of the backdrop for the vice president. An Ohio man recently pleaded guilty to federal charges for vandalizing Vance’s Cincinnati home, a reminder that the office carries both policy fights and real-world friction.
None of that changes the core question Vance put to Microsoft and Adobe: will large employers keep using temporary-visa pipelines as a substitute for American labor, or will they reverse course? The PERM suspension is the administration’s first concrete answer.
American workers have waited years for someone in power to treat the displacement numbers as more than a talking point. Vance just did. The companies can restore their green-card access the moment they prove U.S. employees come first, not a day sooner.