Trump administration freezes green cards at Microsoft, IT firms

The Trump administration has frozen green card processing for employees at Microsoft and other information-technology employers and opened investigations into universities, according to a Reuters report. The dispatch, the only sourcing HTT News could confirm as of publication, does not identify the agency that issued the freeze, the visa category affected, or the universities under review.

What did Reuters report?

The headline states that the administration "freezes green cards for Microsoft, IT firms, probes universities." No accompanying statement from the Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or the State Department appears in the material reviewed by HTT News. No agency memo, Federal Register notice, or docket number was available to confirm the legal mechanism behind the action.

Which agency ordered the freeze, and what visa category does it touch?

Employer-sponsored permanent residency generally moves through several discrete steps — labor certification through the Department of Labor, an immigrant petition filed with USCIS, and in some cases final processing through the State Department's National Visa Center. Reuters's report does not say which of these steps has stopped, nor whether the pause covers a specific employment-based category such as EB-2 or EB-3. Without a published agency notice, the scope and duration of the freeze cannot be independently verified.

What is the university investigation about?

The Reuters headline references probes of universities without naming the institutions, the federal office conducting the inquiries, or the statutory basis for any review. No subpoena, formal complaint, or agency statement describing the investigation's scope was included in the sourcing available to HTT News.

Have Microsoft or other named companies responded?

No company statement appears in the material reviewed for this story. Microsoft has not been shown, in available sourcing, to have issued a public response to the reported freeze, and no other IT employer is named or quoted in the report HTT News examined.

What should affected employers and workers watch for?

A formal change to green card processing would typically surface as a policy memo from USCIS, a Federal Register notice, or a statement from the Department of Homeland Security or State Department. Employers and sponsored workers seeking to confirm scope, duration, or any appeal process would look to those primary documents rather than secondhand reporting. HTT News will update this story if the underlying agency guidance, a named university, or additional corroborating reporting becomes available.