Satya Nadella Gave Up His Green Card for His Wife: Now Microsoft Faces US Immigration Crackdown

The Trump administration suspended Microsoft from a federal green-card sponsorship program on Oct. 8, freezing new applications and pending cases for foreign workers seeking permanent residence through the company. The decision came on the same day President Donald Trump awarded Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella the National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

Nadella has his own history with the U.S. immigration system. In 1994, he surrendered his green card and switched to an H-1B visa so his wife, Anupama, could join him in the United States. His personal experience is unrelated to the current action against Microsoft, but it illustrates how immigration rules can affect workers’ family lives as well as their careers.

The suspension affects Microsoft and seven other technology and IT services companies. It does not revoke existing work authorization, but it puts an important route to permanent residence on hold for employees who rely on those employers to sponsor them.

What the PERM Suspension Actually Stops

Vice President JD Vance announced the action alongside Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. The Labor Department said it would stop accepting new applications and processing pending cases under the Permanent Labor Certification program, known as PERM, for eight companies: Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini.

Sonderling said Microsoft and Adobe were included because of multiple active federal investigations. Vance did not provide an end date, saying the suspension would remain in place as long as necessary.

PERM is generally the first major step employers take when sponsoring eligible foreign workers for employment-based green cards. The process requires employers to demonstrate that there are not sufficient qualified, available US workers for the position and that hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers.

Stopping PERM processing does not automatically prevent Microsoft from employing H-1B visa holders. Nor does it cancel an employee’s existing work authorization. The immediate effect is narrower: workers whose permanent-residence applications depend on Microsoft’s PERM process cannot move those cases forward through the company while the suspension remains in place.

Government’s Claims vs Microsoft’s Response

Vance cited Microsoft’s layoffs alongside its visa activity, saying the company had laid off about 6,000 American workers while obtaining approximately 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards, according to Reuters’ Oct. 8 report.

“Of the approximately 6,000 H-1B visa applications we submitted in the last fiscal year, 80% percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees. These were not to hire new people,” Microsoft said in its Oct. 8 statement.

Those figures describe different parts of the employment process. Layoffs may involve different roles, locations and dates from visa filings, while visa approvals alone do not establish that a foreign worker took the place of a laid-off American employee. The administration’s allegation and Microsoft’s explanation therefore need to be assessed against evidence about specific positions and hiring decisions, not simply compared as headline numbers.

The suspension also covers six other companies, including major Indian IT services providers. For their employees, the consequences depend on whether they are pursuing permanent residence through a named employer, how far their cases have progressed and how long the restriction lasts.

Nadella’s Green Card Story

Nadella moved to the United States in 1988 to study at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He married Anupama in 1992 and held permanent-resident status, but her immigration process was delayed because spouses of green-card holders faced long waits.

“Well, the H-1B enables spouses to come to the US while their husbands and wives are working here. Such is the perverse logic of this immigration law. There was nothing I could do about it. Anu was my priority. And that made my decision a simple one,” Nadella wrote in Hit Refresh.

Nadella later became a US citizen. His experience offers a personal example of how immigration rules can force people to weigh career plans against family circumstances. It does not explain the Labor Department’s decision in 2026, and there is no evidence that his earlier immigration choice is connected to the investigation of Microsoft.

“For his transformative leadership of a critical American technology company, which led to its rejuvenation for a new era of cloud computing, and for his construction of the hyperscale infrastructure that enabled the training and global deployment of American super intelligence,” the White House said in its Oct. 8 citation for Nadella’s National Medal of Technology and Innovation.

The award recognized Nadella’s achievements; the suspension targets the company’s participation in an immigration program.