US suspends TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL and four others from green card sponsorship programme

The US Department of Labor has suspended eight companies, among them India’s biggest IT firms, from the programme they use to sponsor foreign employees for green cards. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move in Washington on Thursday, 8 October, with Vice President JD Vance beside him.

Who is affected

• Six IT services firms: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant and Capgemini.
• Two US tech companies: Microsoft and Adobe.

What the suspension means

The companies have been suspended from the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) programme. The programme handles employer-sponsored green card applications.

“We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labour certification applications involving these companies,” Sonderling said. That means green card cases these companies have already filed for their H-1B employees are frozen too, not just new ones. Neither The Week nor The Tribune reported how long the suspension will last.

Why the US says it acted

Sonderling said the eight companies had requested nearly three million foreign workers since 2009, received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and obtained more than 100,000 labour certifications. “That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers,” he said.

Vance, who heads the administration’s Anti-Fraud Task Force, singled out Microsoft. He said it laid off 6,000 Americans in 2025 while securing 6,300 H-1B visas and nearly 3,000 green cards.

What it means for Indian workers

Many Indian professionals in the US work for these firms on H-1B visas. Until the suspension is lifted, these employers can’t move their permanent residency cases forward through PERM. The reports we reviewed carried no response from the companies. “infosys tcs wipro green card suspension” was among India’s top searches overnight.

Sources: The Week, The Tribune.