look news india
For Indian IT professionals and skilled tech workers dreaming of settling in America and becoming permanent residents, a very worrying news has come out from the US Immigration and Labor Department. The US Government and the Labor Department have tightened the noose on a total of 8 major tech companies and IT consulting firms for violating immigration rules, salary standards and employment conditions.
The administration has approved the work to be processed through these 8 identified companies. ‘Permanent Labor Certification’ (PERM Certification) And Green Card applications have been stopped. After this joint action of the US Homeland Security and Labor Department, clouds of uncertainty are looming over the future of thousands of Indian software engineers, system analysts and data scientists working in these companies.
According to the report released by the US authorities, the 8 companies on which this ban has been imposed include many major IT consulting, outsourcing and staffing firms which have been calling skilled workers mainly from India and Asian countries to America. These companies are accused of taking advantage of loopholes in US immigration laws to ignore local American workers and paying foreign workers less than the prescribed minimum wage.
Additionally, the Labor Department found in its investigation that some of these companies submitted fraudulent documents during the PERM process and knowingly rejected applications from eligible US citizens for sponsored green card positions. To curb such illegal conduct, the US Labor Department has taken strict punitive measures against these companies.
This decision has come as a big double blow for Indian employees working in America. IT professionals from India usually go to the US on H-1B visa and then apply for a green card (PERM process) through their employer company.
This new administrative ban means that the wait for the green card of Indian employees working in these 8 blacklisted companies is now on hold indefinitely. Not only this, if the H-1B visa of these employees is about to reach its maximum limit of 6 years and their PERM certification remains pending, then they may have to leave the US and return to India or immediately get their job transferred to another recognized US company.
American immigration lawyers and legal experts have advised affected employees to take quick and strategic steps instead of panicking. If an employee is employed by one of these banned companies, the first and safest option for him/her is to move to a reputable company with an impeccable PERM record as soon as possible.
Another option is for employees to try to move, if possible, to a higher visa category, such as an O-1 visa or EB-1B/EB-2 NIW (National Interest Waiver), which have fewer or different company sponsorship requirements. This tightening of immigration rules after the US presidential elections is a clear indication that the legal standards for foreign tech workers in America are going to become more stringent in the coming days.