AXY News Global

AXY News Global · technology

Trump's Green Card Curbs Put Indian Tech Workers' US Dream at Risk

A freeze on permanent-hiring applications at eight tech firms, including Infosys and TCS, squeezes a route many Indian engineers have relied on

By AXY Tech Desk ·

Trump's Green Card Curbs Put Indian Tech Workers' US Dream at Risk

Key points

The United States has suspended eight technology firms from hiring skilled international workers on a permanent basis, a move that strikes at one of the best-known routes for Indian engineers hoping to build a life in America. The firms named in the reporting are Microsoft, India's Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies. Earlier this month, the US announced that new and pending applications under the Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM, had been frozen.

For millions of Indians, the route to a life in the US has followed a familiar script. You earn an engineering degree, take a job at a tech services company, get posted to America, renew temporary work visas over several years, and then, if the paperwork moves, receive a green card. That card grants permanent residency. For many people it is the step that comes before they can apply for citizenship.

How the Indian Route to a Green Card Was Built

The route rests on two different immigration tools. The H-1B is a temporary visa for specialist workers, and Indians hold a majority of H-1B visas, according to the report. It lets a worker live and work in the US for a set period, and it can be renewed. On its own, it does not lead to permanent residency. That is where PERM comes in.

PERM is the formal first step in many employer-sponsored green cards. In broad terms, the employer has to show that no suitable American worker is available for the job before it can sponsor a foreign employee for permanent residence. The process involves recruitment and paperwork, and it can take a long time, which is why many workers spend years waiting in the queue.

Indian workers on the H-1B have often relied on PERM to move toward a green card and, eventually, citizenship. Over the years, that has made the pathway central to how Indian technology companies staffed American projects and how their employees planned their lives.

Consider what the route means in practice. A worker on an H-1B may be building a career, paying taxes and raising children, all while knowing that the status is temporary. The green card is the point at which that uncertainty is supposed to ease. When that step is frozen, the cost is measured in years of planning, not in a single decision.

What the PERM Freeze Actually Stops

The freeze covers both new and pending filings. That matters because it does not only affect companies planning to bring in staff from abroad. It also reaches workers who have already started the process, some of whom may have been waiting for a long time. For them, the question is no longer how quickly their case will move. It is whether it can move at all while the freeze stays in place.

This is AXY's reading of the situation: the freeze lands hardest on individuals, not on company balance sheets. A firm can change its hiring plans and carry on. A worker who has spent years on a temporary visa, possibly with a family and long-term plans built around a green card decision, has far less room to adjust.

The freeze also hits a step that many people treat as a milestone rather than a formality. A green card gives a worker the freedom to change jobs without tying their legal status to a single employer, to plan for the long term and to settle more firmly in the country. Delay keeps all of those choices on hold.

Why the Eight Firms Are Downplaying the Impact

The reporting links the decision to Trump's broader push for stricter skilled-worker immigration rules. Tech companies, it says, have been adapting to those rules for some time, and that is why the impact on businesses may be minimal. The report does not present the freeze as a sudden shock to the sector. It treats it as the latest step in a process companies had already been managing.

The industry's response has been measured. Nasscom, the trade association for India's technology industry, which the report puts at $300bn (£226bn), said Indian companies have reduced their dependence on H-1B visas and are hiring more locally. "Consequently, the number of employees transitioning from H-1B visas to permanent residency through the PERM process is also relatively limited," the association said.

Wipro said in a statement that more than 80% of its workforce in the US is locally hired. Tata Consultancy Services said its PERM applications were in single digits over the last two years. Microsoft said in a statement that it has filed for H-1B visas mostly to retain existing staff, not to import new workers.

Brokerage firm HDFC Securities said the impact on tech firms would be minimal. In its view, PERM-linked jobs make up only a small share of revenue, even if higher-paid American workers replace them.

The two sides are describing the same system from different angles. Companies point to small shares of revenue and growing local hiring. Workers and their families look at the wait, the paperwork and the uncertainty about their status. Both can be true at once, which is why the debate is so hard to settle.

The Filing Numbers That Show a Steep Drop

A report in an Indian business newspaper, citing PERM Tracker, offered a clearer picture of how sharply filings have fallen. According to that report, TCS's applications dropped to two in 2025-26, from 513 in the previous year and 1,804 in the year before that. The report found no records for Infosys and Wipro for 2025-26.

Those numbers help explain why the companies are playing down the freeze. If a firm has filed only a handful of applications in recent years, a pause on that route is unlikely to change its staffing plans in a major way. Thousands of filings a year have shrunk to a few, and that shift happened before the latest freeze took effect.

The figures also expose a gap between corporate averages and individual cases. A company can say most of its US hiring is local and still employ people who depend on a pending application. Aggregate numbers do not tell those workers how long they will have to wait.

Eight Companies, No Answers Yet

The original reporting emailed all eight companies asking about the impact of the restriction and how they were supporting affected employees in the US. Those emails went unanswered. That leaves open the practical questions that matter most to staff: whether pending cases will restart, whether employees will get help with other routes, and what support exists if a visa runs out while a case is on hold.

The silence also matters for the wider debate. Many people affected are not senior executives. They are engineers and other staff whose futures depend on a process that has now stopped. Without company statements, their situation is described mainly through the firms' broad figures, which may not match what an individual worker faces.

How Long the Freeze Could Last and Who Else Could Be Hit

The next test is how long the freeze lasts. A short pause and an open-ended one would have very different effects on people planning to stay in America. If the restriction continues, workers who expected to move from a temporary visa to permanent residency could find themselves renewing visas for longer than planned, with more uncertainty about jobs and travel.

The second question is who else might be drawn in. The report describes the eight firms as the current target. It is harder to say whether the same approach could extend to other employers, or whether firms with few PERM filings might quietly reduce sponsorship altogether. That would be a bigger change than the headline numbers suggest.

For Indian tech workers, the stakes are personal as well as financial. The green card has long offered stability, and a freeze that delays it pushes the dream further away, even if most companies say the direct cost to them is small. For the people waiting in the queue, that gap between corporate and personal cost is the real story.

Questions and answers

What did the US announce about tech firms and green cards?

The US said it would suspend eight technology firms, including Microsoft, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies, from hiring skilled international workers on a permanent basis. New and pending applications under the PERM process have been frozen.

What is PERM and why does it matter for Indian workers?

PERM is the Permanent Labor Certification Program, a formal first step in many employer-sponsored US green cards. Indians hold a majority of H-1B visas, and many rely on PERM to move from temporary work status toward permanent residency.

Will the PERM freeze hit tech companies hard?

The report says the impact on businesses may be minimal, because companies have reduced their reliance on H-1B visas and are hiring more locally. HDFC Securities also said PERM-linked jobs make up only a small share of revenue.

Why could the freeze matter most to individual workers?

Workers who have already started a PERM application, or who are on H-1B visas waiting for a green card, face an unclear timetable. The eight companies did not answer questions about how they are supporting affected employees.

Topics: Trump green card curbs, H-1B visa, PERM green card, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Indian tech workers, US immigration

Sources: BBC Technology

https://axynewsglobal.com/article/trump-s-green-card-curbs-put-indian-tech-workers-us-dream-at-risk