In a significant move that reflects the evolving landscape of global talent acquisition, technology behemoth IBM has decided to discontinue sponsoring US visas and green cards for most roles within its largest division - IBM Consulting. This announcement was made on Tuesday, following a series of actions by the Trump administration aimed at curbing the employment of highly skilled foreign workers in the United States.
The decision comes as a response to the shifting demands in skill availability and client needs, according to a company spokesperson who spoke with Reuters. IBM Consulting, which employs over 150,000 of IBM's global workforce of 264,300, has been reducing its reliance on H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers in recent years. In fiscal year 2026, only 1,611 H-1B petitions were approved for the company, according to data from US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The Trump administration has been putting pressure on major companies to reduce their reliance on foreign workers in the US, with President Donald Trump claiming that the programme is often subject to fraud and takes work away from skilled Americans, giving it to immigrants instead. Last year, the administration announced a one-time $100,000 fee for new H-1B petitions and suspended a number of tech companies from a programme that allows H-1B workers to apply for green cards, citing fraud concerns and ensuring American workers are not being laid off and replaced by foreigners. The suspended companies included Adobe and top H-1B employers Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, and Microsoft.
The suspensions were announced within hours of Trump honoring Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Nadella, an India-born business leader, was one of six recipients of this honor, five of whom are foreign-born US citizens, including Tesla boss Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa, and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, who immigrated from Russia with his family as a child.