New Green Card Barriers: Trump's Curbs Put Indian Tech Workers' American Dream in Uncertainty
For millions of Indians, the road to the ultimate career aspiration had a familiar script — an engineering degree to get a tech services job, then a posting in the US, repeated visa renewals and then the green card that gave them permanent residency. Amid US immigration curbs, that script is now facing deep uncertainty.
Earlier this month, the United States announced it would suspend eight technology firms, including Microsoft, India's Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies, from hiring skilled international workers on a permanent basis through a widely used visa pathway.
New and pending applications under the Permanent Labor Certification Program, or PERM, have been frozen. This is a big blow to Indians, who hold a majority of H-1B visas — a temporary visa for specialists — which they used to work in the US while relying on PERM to get a green card and, ultimately, citizenship.
Experts say the latest announcement is in line with the Trump administration's push for stricter skilled-worker immigration rules, which tech firms have been adapting to, so the impact on businesses may be minimal.
Nasscom, the trade association of India's $300 billion technology industry, says Indian companies have reduced their dependence on H-1B visas and are hiring more locally. Consequently, it adds, the number of employees transitioning from H-1B visas to permanent residency through PERM is also relatively limited.
Wipro said in a statement that more than 80% of its workforce in the US is locally hired. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said its PERM applications were in single digits in the last two years. Microsoft said it has filed for H-1B visas mostly to retain existing staff, not to import new workers.
A report in the Business Standard newspaper, citing PERM Tracker, said TCS' application filings fell to two in 2025-26 from 513 in the previous year and 1,804 in the year before that. The report said no records were found for Infosys and Wipro for 2025-26. Emails to all eight companies asking about the impact remained unanswered.
Brokerage firm HDFC Securities said the impact on tech firms would be minimal, as PERM-linked jobs make up only a small share of revenue, even if higher-paid American workers replace them.
But the US government's decision has an impact beyond business. A US-based senior executive with one of the eight firms, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new PERM restriction will 'not break the business', but the impact is more 'intense' at a human level. He said many people have spent some years in the US but their green card application has not moved; even if they are ready to move back to India, their children do not want to because they grew up there.
Recent policy moves have deepened uncertainty and amplified online hostility towards Indian immigrants and H-1B visa holders. Researchers at Stop AAPI Hate, a US non-profit that combats anti-Asian and Pacific Islander discrimination, have reported a sharp increase in anti-South Asian online sentiment since the 2024 US election, with Indian immigrants and H-1B visa holders being frequent targets.
While barring the eight tech companies from PERM, US Vice President JD Vance referred to foreign professionals holding H-1B visas as 'foreign indentured servants'. He later acknowledged it was 'imperfect' rhetoric, but his remark drew sharp criticism from India's foreign ministry, which called it 'unwarranted' and 'deeply offensive' for the colonial connotation.
Poorvi Chothani, founder and managing partner of global immigration law firm LawQuest, said many came to the US for better prospects, borrowing heavily to study and build careers. But as rules tighten now, they have fewer options and less ability to absorb the costs.
According to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), nearly one million Indian nationals were waiting for employment-based green cards as of December 2025, representing 79% of the total pending applications. Their report projects wait times ranging from five to 179 years for highly skilled Indians filing petitions from January 2026, depending on the visa category.
There are other routes to a US green card. People with exceptional accomplishments or whose work advances national interests may be eligible for categories that bypass PERM labour certification, and applicants can also qualify by investing at least $800,000 in eligible US enterprises. But Ahmet Gulek, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Immigration Policy Lab, warns some of these categories 'may be targeted next'.
Like other recent immigration measures, the PERM suspension may face federal court challenges. Earlier, the Trump administration imposed a $100,000 fee on certain new H-1B visa petitions, later struck down by federal courts, and has more recently proposed a $70,000 fee for universities recommending international students for a programme that allows graduates to work after completing their studies. Together, these moves signal a more restrictive climate for those hoping to study, work or settle in the US — and for Indian professionals, the old script about building a future in America may have to be rewritten.
