Vice President JD Vance described the move as a suspension that would remain in place while officials investigate alleged abuse of the employment-based immigration system. The Economic Times reported that Vance said the pause would last as long as the administration considered necessary.
The action targets companies' access to the permanent labor certification process. It does not, by itself, cancel existing H-1B visas or revoke green cards that have already been issued.
How PERM differs from H-1B
The Labor Department describes PERM as the process employers generally use before asking U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve a foreign worker for permanent employment. DOL must certify that qualified U.S. workers are not available for the job and that hiring a foreign worker will not harm the wages or working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.
H-1B, by contrast, is a temporary-worker classification. A person may hold H-1B status while an employer pursues permanent residency on that worker's behalf, but the two processes are legally distinct. That distinction matters here because the reported enforcement action blocks the PERM track for the targeted employers rather than ending the separate H-1B program.
The administration's case
Vance accused Microsoft of laying off 6,000 U.S. workers while benefiting from 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 employment-based green cards. Those figures were presented by Vance as part of the administration's case; the reports did not establish them as independent findings.
The administration also alleged that some employers manipulate required recruitment by posting jobs in ways that attract no qualified U.S. applicants and then pay foreign workers less. The reports described those allegations as under investigation rather than adjudicated findings. Axios said Microsoft had not responded to its request for comment by the time its report was published.
For affected employers and workers, the immediate consequence is procedural: new PERM filings from the targeted companies will not move forward, and their pending cases will remain stalled while the investigations continue.
