The United States has barred eight IT firms, including Microsoft, Tata, Wipro and Infosys, from participating in its Permanent Labour Certification (PERM) programme, a key step in the employer-sponsored Green Card process, claiming the practice has shut out American workers from the job market. Adobe, Cognizant, HCL and Capgemini are other targeted companies, as the Donald Trump administration intensifies scrutiny of H-1B hiring and alleges abuse of programmes used to employ foreign workers.
More than 5.2 million people of Indian origin live in the US, according to recent estimates based on US Census data.
For the process, the Labour Department must certify to the US Citizenship and Immigration Services that there are not enough US workers who are qualified and available for a given job opportunity and that the employment of the foreign worker will not affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed Americans. But these petitions could take years to process due to massive backlogs and shortages of availability. Outside of PERM and family-based routes to permanent residency, foreign workers would be left with self-petition for green cards through processes such as the EB-1A application for individuals with extraordinary ability or the EB-2 National Interest Waiver.
Vance said, “Our message to Microsoft is : You’re a great American company, but you’ve got to hire great American workers.”
