The United States has barred Microsoft, Infosys, TCS and Wipro from a Green Card programme, a change that directly affects thousands of Indian professionals who rely on these employers to sponsor employment-based permanent residence.

The four companies named in the change are among the largest sponsors of work visas and Green Cards for Indian nationals. Their exclusion from the programme removes a major pathway that Indian employees have historically used to transition from temporary work authorisation to permanent residency.

Who is affected by the exclusion?

The decision touches two groups at once. First, employees of the four named companies who are currently in the Green Card process or planned to file through their employer. Second, prospective hires who may now weigh job offers from these firms differently, since the sponsorship route they expected is no longer available through this programme.

Indian nationals carry the longest Green Card backlogs in the US employment-based system, a consequence of per-country caps on permanent residence. For many of them, employer sponsorship is the only realistic route to a Green Card, which makes any restriction on a major sponsor a material change to their immigration planning.

What changes for Indian workers?

For employees of Microsoft, Infosys, TCS and Wipro, the practical effect is that the sponsoring employer named in their case can no longer use the affected programme. Workers in this position now face a choice:

• Wait and monitor whether the exclusion is challenged, reversed or narrowed in scope;
• Seek a different employer willing to sponsor a Green Card through an unaffected route;
• Explore other categories of permanent residence they may qualify for independently of an employer.

Firstpost, which first reported the development, framed the change around its consequences for Indians, the nationality most heavily represented in the employment-based Green Card queue sponsored by these firms.

Why do the four companies matter?

Microsoft, Infosys, TCS and Wipro sit at the centre of the US market for skilled technology labour. Indian IT services firms and large technology employers together account for a substantial share of employment-based Green Card petitions filed each year on behalf of Indian nationals. Removing four of the biggest names from one programme concentrates the impact on a single nationality more than almost any other measure could.

The affected employees should confirm their individual situation with an immigration attorney and track guidance from US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that administers the Green Card programme concerned. Official notices and the Federal Register remain the authoritative sources for the exact scope, timing and any transition provisions of the exclusion.