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Freedom251 › Blog › AI Investment

AI Spending Questions Persist as Washington Targets Tech Firms’ PERM Green-Card Process

By Freedom251 Team · · 6 min read

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On October 8, 2026, the administration announced suspensions of eight companies from the U.S. Permanent Labor Certification Program (PERM), the labor-certification step in an employer-sponsored route to permanent residence. Microsoft is the best-known name on the list. PERM is not an H-1B visa, and the suspension does not by itself end the H-1B work authorization of anyone employed by these companies. The accusations behind the action are allegations from officials, and no final finding has been reported. Bloomberg Tech placed the immigration story in the same segment as a separate market question: Samsung’s quarterly profit jumped and TSMC’s sales surged, yet investors keep asking how long the AI investment boom can last.

What the administration announced on October 8, 2026

Bloomberg reported that Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the suspensions. The named companies were:

  • Microsoft
  • Adobe
  • Cognizant
  • Infosys
  • Tata
  • Wipro
  • HCL Technologies
  • Capgemini

Bloomberg described the government’s position as an allegation of widespread abuse of worker-visa systems and reported that federal investigations were underway. It described the suspensions as indefinite. The Washington Post reported that officials did not publicly explain why Microsoft and Adobe were under investigation, or how long the suspensions would last. No final adjudication has been reported, so the action should be read as an announced administrative step whose full legal basis and length are not yet documented.

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PERM and H-1B are different tools

PERM is a labor-certification stage in an employer-sponsored route to permanent residence. Before an employer can sponsor a worker for a green card, it must show that there are not qualified U.S. workers available for the job, according to The Washington Post. H-1B is a different category: temporary work authorization. The two programs both involve employers and foreign workers, which is why they are often conflated, but they serve different purposes, so a restriction on one does not automatically reach the other.

Question PERM (permanent-residence route) H-1B
What it is Labor-certification stage in an employer-sponsored path to a green card Temporary work authorization
Employer test Employer must show there are not qualified U.S. workers available for the job (Washington Post) Not stated in the October 8 reporting
Who it concerns Foreign workers seeking a permanent-residence path through a sponsoring employer Foreign workers holding or seeking temporary work authorization

What the suspension blocks, and what it leaves alone

The reported suspension blocks the named companies from using the PERM certification route. Whether its practical effect reaches a given worker depends on which status that worker holds and how far along their case is.

Employees already on H-1B status

The reporting does not describe any change to the status of current H-1B employees at the named companies. What it describes is a block on a permanent-residence step, which is a separate matter from temporary work authorization.

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Hiring new H-1B workers

Reporting says the PERM suspension does not itself bar the affected companies from employing H-1B workers. Whether any of them changes its H-1B hiring in response is not addressed in the reporting.

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Green-card paths through the named companies

For a foreign worker hoping to reach permanent residence through one of the named employers, the PERM route is blocked while the suspension stands. Because officials did not say how long the suspensions would last, the length of that block cannot be estimated. The reporting also does not address how the suspension treats labor-certification cases that were already in progress.

The measure names specific companies. The reporting does not describe any broader change to PERM for other employers, so the suspension should not be read as closing the program as a whole.

The allegations, and what officials have and have not shown

The administration’s claims

Vance’s public remarks were the sharpest in the coverage. He said:

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“There has been no company in the United States, unfortunately, that has abused this system more than Microsoft.”

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He also said:

“Stop defrauding the American worker. Stop importing an indentured servant to do a job that an American worker would happily do.”

These sentences express the administration’s accusations and rhetoric; they are not adjudicated findings. The Washington Post reported that the administration did not present evidence at the announcement for Vance’s claim that Microsoft had laid off U.S. workers and replaced them with H-1B workers.

Microsoft’s response

Microsoft said that of the approximately 6,000 H-1B applications it submitted in its most recent fiscal year, 80% were for extensions or changes of status for current employees. The remaining filings for new employees, it said, were for people already legally in the United States, and those equaled 1% of its U.S. workforce. The company put it this way:

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“These were not to hire new people. The remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States who decided to come work for us, and they equal only 1% of our U.S. Workforce.”

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These are Microsoft’s own characterizations, as Bloomberg and TechCrunch reproduced them. They are the company’s account, not an independent audit.

Critics of the approach

Representative Pramila Jayapal framed the issue as one of the broader immigration system:

“You don’t fix a broken immigration system by taking a hammer to legal immigration.”

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That remark is commentary on policy design, not a finding about any company’s conduct.

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Reported counts: what each figure measures

Several numbers circulated around the announcement. They use different measures, periods and scopes, so they should not be added together or compared directly. They are press-reported figures drawn from government data, not the agencies’ own published datasets.

Reported figure What it measures Period Whose filings Attributed to
About 1,680 Petitions for permanent status Through the third quarter of federal fiscal 2026, which ended September 30 Microsoft Bloomberg, citing Department of Labor data
3,688 H-1B visas First nine months of fiscal 2026 Not stated Bloomberg, citing USCIS data
Roughly 3,700 H-1B approvals Through June 30 (as the Post reported) Not stated The Washington Post
About 54,000 H-1B petitions Previous decade Not stated The Washington Post, citing federal government data

The AI-spending question behind the segment

Bloomberg Tech’s October 8, 2026 episode description pairs the immigration story with chipmaker results. Ed Ludlow is named as the reporter on the segment. The description says Samsung’s quarterly profit jumped and TSMC’s sales surged, while investors remain worried about how long the AI investment boom can last.

What the segment supports

The segment establishes a tension between two things: near-term reported company performance, and investor expectations about how long AI investment will continue and whether it will pay off. Quarterly results describe what has already happened. The durability question is about what comes next, and the two can point in different directions.

What the segment does not establish

The episode description gives no Samsung profit figure, no TSMC sales figure, no reporting period, and no aggregate AI-spending total. It does not explain why strong results and investor doubt coexist, and it does not show that the results settle the investment question. Read it as a framing of market sentiment, not as evidence that AI spending is secure or slowing.

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Following the story from here

  • The agency order. The formal order behind the suspensions would settle their legal scope and duration. It was not part of the October 8 reporting, so check the issuing agency’s publications for it.
  • The official datasets. The fiscal 2026 counts above come from press accounts of Department of Labor and USCIS data. Check the agencies’ published figures before quoting any single number as official.
  • Company quarterly releases. Samsung’s and TSMC’s own earnings releases are the places to find the profit and sales figures that the segment described without numbers.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

AI InvestmentBloomberg TechH-1Bimmigration policyMicrosoftPERMSamsungTSMC

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