Vance Says Microsoft Gamed the Green Card System. Now It's Locked Out

On October 8 the Trump administration did something Washington has talked about for years and rarely done: it shut a door on some of the largest users of the employment-based green card pipeline. According to reports, Labor Department official Keith Sonderling announced that Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini will no longer be able to file new applications, and that their pending applications will not be processed, under the Permanent Labor Certification Program, known as PERM.

PERM is generally an employer's first step in sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment-based green card. Its premise is simple and, in principle, reasonable: before a company sponsors a foreign worker, it must certify that it could not find a qualified American for the job. That certification is the entire point of the program. If it is routinely false, the program is a formality that protects no one.

What the administration alleges

Vice President JD Vance said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while receiving 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, according to reports of his remarks. The administration alleges that certifications of the kind PERM requires are false when companies use the program to replace U.S. workers with lower-paid foreign employees. Vance said the suspensions will remain "as long as it needs to," according to coverage of the announcement.

Sonderling tied the Microsoft and Adobe suspensions to what he called "multiple active federal investigations," per Staffing Industry Analysts. For the outsourcing firms, officials pointed to volume: the eight employers together have obtained more than 100,000 permanent labor certifications since 2009, according to that same report. The administration also opened investigations into nine universities as part of a broader review of alleged H-1B and J-1 visa abuse.

Everything above is an allegation or an announced administrative action. The reports we reviewed describe suspensions and investigations, not criminal charges or findings by a court.

Microsoft's answer, and a fair critique

Microsoft pushed back. The company said it pays its H-1B employees the same as other employees doing comparable work, and that about 80 percent of the H-1B applications it filed in the last fiscal year were to extend or change the status of current employees rather than to hire new ones, according to Axios and other outlets. Tata Consultancy Services said its PERM applications were in the single digits over the last two years and that it does not expect a major workforce impact, per Staffing Industry Analysts.

That answer deserves a real reply. So does a conservative critique: National Review argued that Vance's numbers do not show that the immigrant hires held the same jobs as the laid-off workers. It is a fair point. Companies lay off in one division while hiring in another, and a headline comparison of layoffs and visas is not proof of displacement. If the administration has evidence that specific American workers were replaced by specific sponsored hires, it should put that evidence in front of a neutral decision-maker, and soon.

Critics on the left are already framing this as a broad attack. Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it takes "a hammer to legal immigration," according to Axios. That framing is wrong on the central question. Enforcing a certification requirement that Congress and the Labor Department wrote is not hostility to legal immigration. It is the opposite: legal immigration only retains public consent if its rules are followed.

The constitutional question nobody should skip

Conservatives who cheer this should also ask the process question. A suspension that bars a company from a federal program, with no announced end date and no stated path to reinstatement, is a serious sanction. Reports differ on its duration: Bloomberg describes the suspensions as indefinite, while Boundless says no end date or route to reinstatement has been announced. Due process is not a left-wing idea. It is the part of the Constitution that makes a government action legitimate when it hits a particular person or company. An open process that proves the case makes the action stronger.

What to watch

First, whether the Labor Department publishes the evidence behind the "active investigations" and whether any enforcement action follows. Second, whether the suspensions survive any court challenge. Third, whether American workers see results rather than a one-day headline.

The principle is right. A visa program built on the promise that no American is available for the job should be audited hard, and the biggest users should expect the closest scrutiny. The test now is whether the administration can back a bold announcement with proof, and whether the process it uses is one it would accept from its own opponents.