Labor Department's PERM freeze at eight firms puts H-1B staff near the six-year cap at risk

The Trump administration declared on Thursday that it was suspending Microsoft and Adobe from a federal visa sponsorship program.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said at a press conference that the government would not accept any new PERM applications or process any pending ones for the named companies: Microsoft, Adobe, and tech outsourcing firms Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini.

The Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) program is an initial step employers generally must complete before sponsoring a worker for an employment-based visa, requiring them to show that no qualified and available US workers could fill the role.

Sonderling's list names eight companies: Microsoft and Adobe plus six outsourcing firms.

Locke said workers would only face potential removal if they exhausted their H-1B eligibility and could not secure an extension or another legal basis, of which there are several, to remain in the country.

"Most people will either be able to wait it out or have time to switch jobs," said Loren Locke.

"If the goal is to crush H-1B workers, it's not great, but it's not really crushing them either," Locke said.

Some of the immigration attorneys said the suspensions were the latest in a series of US measures targeting foreign workers.

One attorney suggested the suspensions would only impact a relatively small group of workers.

The attorneys spoke in general terms about the advice they would give without knowing a client's specific circumstances or status.

Business Insider spoke to eight immigration attorneys on Thursday after the announcement.

Todd Pomerleau, a Boston immigration attorney, said that with uncertainty around the extent and enforcement of the suspensions, "anybody who's concerned about their immigration status needs to seek competent counsel."

Immigration attorneys told Business Insider that employees on H-1B visas at Microsoft, Adobe and the other named companies should seek counsel and get clarity about their status.

Vice President JD Vance said at a press conference on Thursday that Microsoft had "abused" the PERM system by laying off American workers and using it to hire foreign ones, who he said were paid less.

"If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants," Vance said.

Matthew Maiona, an immigration attorney at Maiona Ward in Boston, said that in suspending new and pending PERM applications, the administration left a very specific group of H-1B visa holders in limbo.

Maiona said a hypothetical employee at Microsoft or Adobe, six years into an H-1B visa, could now, in theory, be ordered to appear in immigration court under the suspension.

"You could be in trouble if you cannot qualify for another non-immigrant visa classification," Maiona said.

"You may have to leave the United States."

Some immigration attorneys expected the move to be challenged in a lawsuit arguing the suspensions are outside the Labor Department's legal authority.

"I assume, by next week, we will start seeing lawsuits," said Kripa Upadhyay, co-chair of Buchalter's Immigration & Global Mobility Practice, a Seattle firm.