The United States Department of Labor on 9 October 2026 suspended eight technology companies from the PERM programme, blocking new and pending labour-certification applications used to sponsor foreign workers for employment-based green cards. The suspended firms include Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, Cognizant, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe, according to the LiveMint report. The department linked the suspensions to multiple ongoing federal investigations.
Within hours, Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu posted on X: “Indians have made a major contribution to America's technological prowess. Yet, a big part of America no longer wants us.” He said Indian professionals on visas face “the painful prospect of uprooting the life you have built with hard work” and urged them to return and help build India's technology sector, the report added. Former education minister Dharmendra Pradhan endorsed the appeal, writing “I agree with you” in response, according to India Today. NDTV reported Vembu's message as an appeal to “come back” and “let's build”.
The United States Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the suspension, flanked by Vice President JD Vance, NDTV reported. The eight companies span four Indian majors, one French services firm, and two US product giants. That mix matters: the action reads less like a narrow strike on Indian outsourcing and more like a broad federal inspection of employment-based sponsorship practices.
What the PERM freeze does and does not do
The PERM labour certification is the step an employer generally takes before sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment-based green card. The employer advertises the role, considers applicants, and documents why qualified US workers were not selected. If the Labour Department certifies the application, the employer may file an immigration petition with US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The suspension means the department will not accept new or process pending PERM-based applications involving the eight companies, LiveMint explains. It does not automatically halt H-1B applications under existing rules, nor does it strip existing H-1B visas or green cards. That distinction matters for Indian engineers who keep valid work authorisation while watching their permanent-residency path freeze.
H-1B is a non-immigrant work permit. PERM is a step toward permanent residency. The suspension touches only the second track, but for many Indian tech workers that second track is the reason they tolerated the first. Per-country ceilings and a large applicant pool already mean long waits; the freeze removes the first rung of the ladder for anyone at these firms who has not yet cleared labour certification. The practical effect is uncertainty: teams may be staffed with engineers who can legally work but cannot plan to settle. That is a hiring and retention problem for the companies, not a deportation order for employees.
Why this lands differently for Indian IT
Indian IT services companies built their US delivery model on the H-1B to PERM to green-card pipeline. TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCLTech send engineers onsite because long client engagements reward familiar faces and institutional knowledge. A suspension at four of the largest Indian firms breaks forward visibility. It does not cancel existing visas, but it pushes client-facing staff toward contract-based mobility and makes every project planning cycle hostage to immigration politics. Some firms will respond by hiring more US citizens and green-card holders locally. Others will move work offshore. Both responses dilute the onsite model that once underpinned Indian IT's growth, and neither happens overnight. Industry body NASSCOM has long identified US visa and immigration rules as a structural risk to Indian IT services, though it has not commented specifically on this PERM action in the cited reporting.
Sridhar Vembu's appeal carries a different weight from routine industry commentary. Zoho is a product company, not a services giant; Vembu built it from India rather than Silicon Valley without depending on H-1B visas for his own workforce. When he says “come back”, he is not asking engineers to accept a downgrade. He is saying the centre of gravity for Indian talent can shift home, where product-building, deep-tech research and state-level ease of doing business increasingly matter. An Indian Institute of Technology alumni body made the same point separately, urging graduates to “build, scale” in India, ThePrint reported.
Reverse migration is now policy, not sentiment
Dharmendra Pradhan's endorsement signals that the political system is prepared to frame the freeze as a talent reclamation opportunity. That is a choice. India could instead treat US immigration policy as an external factor to be managed through lobbying and visa roadshows. The alternative, now visible in Pradhan's response and the IIT alumni call, is to build absorption capacity at home: faster research funding for returning scientists, tax clarity for early-stage technology ventures, state-level startup cells in Pune, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, and deeper links between Indian universities and industry. None of this requires a single grand programme; it requires steady administrative work. The Ministry of External Affairs may separately choose to raise the PERM suspension through bilateral trade channels, but the domestic runway is where India has the most room to move.
The freeze is not a mass deportation letter. It is a signal. For Indian tech professionals, the old bargain of renting talent to the US in exchange for a shot at permanence has become less reliable. For Indian companies, the onsite-dependent staffing model has hit another structural limit. The question is whether the country treats this moment as a problem to be managed or as a reason to build the domestic innovation infrastructure that can absorb its own best people. The answer will show up not in social-media endorsements but in the next wave of Indian product companies and their ability to hire the engineers who are now considering the return flight.
