Microsoft's Brad Smith calls Vance's green card claims 'off base' as IT firms stay frozen

The green card freeze on eight technology and outsourcing companies drew its sharpest pushback yet this week, when Microsoft president Brad Smith called Vice President JD Vance's fraud claims against the company "completely off base." Smith made the remarks in an interview at an international AI summit in Dublin, published on Thursday, October 15, 2026. A week earlier, on October 8, the US Labor Department suspended Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini from the Permanent Labor Certification programme, known as PERM, which is the first step for most employer-sponsored green cards. The department said it would not accept new PERM applications from the eight firms or process their pending ones, and no end date has been announced.

For many Indian engineers in the United States, PERM is the gate to permanent residence, because it is the labour certification an employer must obtain before most employment-based green card petitions can go ahead. Freezing PERM for a named company therefore stops the green card journey of every worker that company was sponsoring, even while their H-1B work status remains valid.

The list is heavy with firms that employ large numbers of Indian professionals: four of the eight, Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL, are Indian IT services companies, and Cognizant and Capgemini run large delivery operations in the same industry. Vance has accused Microsoft of laying off American workers while seeking visas and green cards for foreign staff; he alleged that the company cut 6,000 American jobs, benefited from 6,300 H-1B visas and pursued almost 3,000 green cards.

Smith's answer was that the figures were misread. He said most of Microsoft's visa and green card applications were for people who had already worked at the company for years and were stuck in the green card backlog, not for new hires. He also said Microsoft pays employees on the same compensation system whether they are American or immigrant. "Someone had failed to inform the vice president accurately about our numbers," Smith said, and warned that the restrictions could push top engineers to other countries and harm US technology for more than a generation.

The administration has not published detailed findings against the IT services firms, and none of the companies has said how many workers are affected.

Short-term: Workers at the eight firms who were waiting for their employer to file or finish PERM now face an indefinite pause. Candidates weighing US job offers from these companies will factor in the uncertainty.

Long-term: If the freeze lasts, some skilled workers may move to employers outside the list, look at other countries, or return to India. Indian IT firms may lean further on local US hiring and on delivery from India. A prolonged clash between the White House and large employers could also shape how the PERM system is policed for all companies.

Who is affected: Indian and other foreign professionals sponsored for green cards by the eight companies; students planning US careers in technology; the IT services industry, whose US operations rely on skilled visa holders; and the families of affected workers.

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