The Trump administration has suspended Microsoft and a string of other major IT employers from a federal program that fast-tracks permanent residency for their foreign workers.
Vice President JD Vance confirmed the suspension, pulling Microsoft and other large tech employers out of a green card pipeline they have relied on to convert visa holders into permanent residents. The move was reported this week, with Vance confirming the decision himself rather than through a formal agency announcement. Neither the administration nor Microsoft has said how many pending applications are affected or how long the freeze will last. The program has long been one of the main routes for skilled foreign tech workers to settle permanently in the US.
The timing fits a broader pattern of this administration making employer-sponsored visas more expensive and harder to secure, so this looks less like an isolated tweak and more like the next turn of the same screw. For the companies affected, a stalled green card pipeline means employees who thought they were on a path to permanent status are suddenly stuck in H-1B limbo, a retention problem as much as a legal one.
Call it immigration policy by attrition: squeeze the pipeline long enough, and some of those workers just leave for a competitor that still offers a clear path to a green card.