The Trump administration on Thursday suspended Microsoft, Adobe and several of the world's largest IT outsourcing companies from a key step in the US green card process, accusing them of fraud and of harming American workers. Officials also announced investigations into nine universities over their use of exchange-visitor visas.

Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the Department of Labor would suspend Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini, along with Microsoft and Adobe, from the Permanent Labor Certification program, known as PERM. "We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies," he said. He said that since 2009 the firms had requested almost three million foreign workers and received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications. Vice President JD Vance, who heads the administration's Anti-Fraud Task Force, said no company had abused the system more than Microsoft.

PERM is required for most employment-based green cards. Employers must show that hiring a foreign worker will not harm the wages, working conditions or job opportunities of US workers. Vance said companies advertise jobs in places such as small-town newspapers, cite the lack of responses, and then replace American staff with foreign workers he called "indentured servants", because H-1B holders who lose their jobs must generally leave the country. He said Microsoft laid off 6,000 American workers last year while obtaining 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards. Microsoft did not immediately respond to requests for comment; Tata Consultancy Services declined to comment, and other named firms did not immediately reply.

The freeze does not appear to directly affect current H-1B visa holders, the temporary visas for skilled foreign workers, but it could block a common route to permanent residency for thousands of them. Technology companies are the biggest users of the program, and nearly three-quarters of approvals go to workers from India. Microsoft is the largest filer of PERM applications, according to Permtrack.app, which compiles Labor Department data.

Vance also named nine universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as targets of investigation over J-1 visas, which cover work and study exchanges. He accused them of using the visas to undercut American wages. Labor Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito said subpoenas had already been served and that investigators would examine whether foreign influence or improper financial relationships were compromising federally funded research. Harvard has previously called a separate subpoena "unfounded retribution".

The actions follow a series of measures against skilled-worker programs, including a one-time $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions for workers hired from abroad and a Labor Department enforcement drive called Project Firewall. A day earlier, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a $70,000 fee for schools for each student in the Optional Practical Training work program. The announcement came hours before President Donald Trump was due to present the National Medal of Technology and Innovation to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, underlining the tension between the administration's courtship of tech leaders and its immigration crackdown.