The Trump administration’s statement Thursday that it was suspending Microsoft and Adobe from the federal visa sponsorship program is reverberating across the tech industry.
Immigration attorneys told Business Insider that employees on H-1B visas working at Microsoft, Adobe and the other tech companies named should seek advice and get clarification on their status in light of the suspensions.
Individual cases can vary and attorneys spoke in general terms about the advice they would give without knowing a client’s specific situation or status.
“This is a time where immigrants, highly skilled immigrants, really need to pay attention to the laws,” said Tahmina Watson, an immigration attorney at Watson Immigration Law in Seattle. “Things change in no time,” she added.
Business Insider spoke with eight immigration attorneys Thursday following the announcement, as part of our ongoing series, “H-1B Fallout: 1 Year Later,” which explores how foreign workers are navigating a rapidly changing U.S. immigration landscape.
Some immigration attorneys said the suspensions would likely be challenged in court. Others said it was the latest in a series of U.S. measures targeting foreign workers. One lawyer suggested they would only impact a relatively small group of workers.
“Most people will either be able to wait or have time to change jobs,” said Loren Locke, an attorney with Locke Immigration Law in Atlanta.
The Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM, is a first step employers must typically take before sponsoring a worker for an employment-based visa, requiring them to demonstrate that no qualified and available U.S. worker could fill that role.
Vice President JD Vance said in a news conference Thursday that Microsoft had “abused” the system by laying off American workers and using it to hire foreigners, who he said were paid less. “If you do the math, for every worker Microsoft laid off, they replaced them with one and a half foreign contract employees,” Vance said.
A Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider a blog post the company released Thursday that “the vast majority of Microsoft employees in the United States are Americans.” The company said it pays its H-1B employees “the same as any other employee performing comparable work.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella receives the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Donald Trump on Thursday, hours after Microsoft suspended a visa program. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said at the news conference that the government would not accept any new PERM applications or process any pending applications for the named companies, which besides Microsoft and Adobe also include technology outsourcing companies. Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini.
The importance of knowing your status
By suspending new and pending PERM applications, the Trump administration left a very specific group of H-1B visa holders in limbo, said Matthew Maiona, an immigration attorney. in the Maiona district in Boston.
Maiona said a hypothetical Microsoft or Adobe employee who has held an H-1B visa for six years could now, in theory, be ordered to appear in immigration court under this new suspension.
“You could be in trouble if you don’t qualify for another nonimmigrant visa classification,” Maiona said. “You may need to leave the United States.”
But Locke said workers would only face deportation if they exhaust their H-1B eligibility and cannot obtain an extension or other legal basis — of which there are several — to remain in the country.
Although H-1B visas have a legal maximum term of six years before they expire, they can be extended beyond that number if workers have made sufficient progress toward obtaining a green card, she said.
“If the goal is to crush H-1B workers, that’s not great, but it doesn’t really crush them either,” Locke said.
Todd Pomerleau, a Boston-based immigration attorney, said that with uncertainty over the extent and enforcement of the suspensions, “anyone concerned about their immigration status should consult competent counsel.”
“We’re going to start seeing trials.”
Some immigration attorneys who spoke to Business Insider said they expected the Trump administration’s decision to be challenged in a lawsuit that would argue that the suspensions are outside the Labor Department’s legal authority.
“My guess is that by next week we’ll start seeing lawsuits,” said Kripa Upadhyay, co-chair of Buchalter’s Immigration & Global Mobility Practice, a Seattle firm.
Ted Chiappari, head of immigration law at Duane Morris LLP, said federal law only allows the Department of Labor to unilaterally suspend an employer from using the PERM program for 180 days.
“It puts the employer on notice that an investigation is underway, and at the end of that investigation, if they find something inappropriate, they have six years to decide whether or not to debar an employer,” he said.
And even then, Chiappari said, they can only exclude an employer for up to three years.
Only the last H-1B broadside
Few lawyers interviewed by Business Insider said they were surprised by this measure. Mostly, they saw it as another salvo in what they described as the Trump administration’s continued crackdown on foreign workers.
Upadhyay said that the day before she spoke with a Microsoft employee on an H-1B whose spouse was also on an H-1B.
The person’s H-1B extension was about to expire, and she was now faced with the “impossible decision” to move to her home country, leaving behind her spouse and two U.S. citizen children.
“I have children to take care of,” Upadhyay remembers telling the worker. “What’s happening now?”
Upadhyay expects to receive more of these calls.
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