The United States suspended eight major technology firms, including Infosys, Wipro, Tata, HCL and Cognizant, from the Permanent Labour Certification Programme on Thursday, US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced.
The programme lets companies apply for green cards for workers on H-1B visas. Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe were also suspended. Vice-President J.D. Vance, head of the US Anti-Fraud Task Force, stood beside Sonderling at the announcement.
Sonderling said the Department of Labour will not accept new applications or process pending ones involving these companies. He said that since 2009 the firms had requested almost three million foreign workers and received over 230,000 H-1B approvals and over 100,000 permanent labour certifications.
“That’s hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers,” Sonderling said.
The decision may matter to Sri Lankans working in the global technology sector or hoping to move to the US, though the announcement gave no detail on its wider effects.
