US freezes green-card sponsorship at Infosys, TCS and six other employers

Vance's one-and-a-half figure adds together two counts that may overlap. He said Microsoft let go 6,000 US workers last year while securing 6,300 H-1B visas and almost 3,000 green cards ^[13]. "If you do the math, for every worker that Microsoft laid off, they replaced that worker with one and a half foreign indentured servants," Vance said ^[14]. Roughly 9,300 visas and green cards against 6,000 layoffs gives about 1.55 ^[17]. Al Jazeera describes PERM as the step that workers already hired on temporary H-1B visas often take to become permanent residents ^[9]. A green card of that kind goes to someone already on the payroll ^[9]. Count the H-1B visas alone and the ratio falls to 1.05 ^[18].

Sonderling's total has the same two parts. He put the suspended companies' tally at more than 230,000 H-1B visas plus more than 100,000 permanent labour certifications ^[10], or about 0.43 certifications for every H-1B visa over the period he cited ^[11]. The order he announced covers the smaller of the two ^{[2] [11]}. "We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labour certification applications involving these companies," Sonderling said ^[2].

On that wording, the eight can still hire on temporary visas ^[2]. Al Jazeera's report does not describe any change to H-1B petitions at these companies, and it does not put a figure on what the suspension costs them. Vance said workers who start on H-1B visas and later apply through PERM are "used to undercut the wages of American workers" ^[16], yet the order as reported stops the later step and leaves the earlier one. What the firms lose is the green card as something to offer engineers already working for them in the US.

The suspension could be short, if the companies satisfy the department; Vance said only that it would continue "as long as it needs to" ^[6]. It could also run for years as a green-card measure with no end date. Or it could be widened to H-1B petitions at the same firms. That version would change what it costs them to hire.

I think the announcement as reported fits the second path. On that path the cost to Infosys, TCS and the others ^[4] falls on keeping US-based engineers, and their hiring is left alone. The view is wrong if the department moves against H-1B filings at the eight, or if the firms report US attrition that they tie to the freeze.