Washington Froze Green Cards at Eight Companies. Their Share Prices Went Up.
On October 8, the US Labor Department stopped taking green card applications from Microsoft, Adobe and six IT services firms, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCLTech. The next morning those four Indian stocks rose as much as 4.7%. That reaction was not investors missing the news. It was investors reading it correctly: the companies barely use this programme any more. The people who do are their employees.
Not a nationwide halt
TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCLTech, FY26
Oct 2025 – Jun 2026
The market shrugged
- What happened. The US Labor Department said it will not accept new green card paperwork from eight named companies, and will stop working on the applications they have already filed.
- It is not a new law. It was announced in a press conference, using a rule that has been on the books for years. No company has been charged with anything.
- It is not about H-1B visas. Nobody loses their job or their right to work. This is the separate, slower process of turning a work visa into permanent residency.
- Why the stocks rose. Four of the named Indian firms sponsored just 61 green cards last year between them, out of more than 104,000 nationwide. There was very little business left to lose.
- Who actually pays. Employees whose applications were already in the queue. Their files are now frozen, with no end date announced.
A Press Conference, Not a Law
Eight companies named out loud, and almost nothing put in writing
On Thursday, October 8, Vice President JD Vance and Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling held a press conference at the White House. Sonderling said he was suspending some of the world's largest IT outsourcing firms from the permanent labour certification programme, known as PERM, and that the department would not accept any new applications or process any pending ones.
He named six outsourcing firms — Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini — then added Microsoft and Adobe, citing active federal investigations.
The rule immigration lawyers point to is a regulation numbered 20 CFR 656.31(b). It lets the Labor Department pause an employer's applications while it investigates possible fraud. A first suspension can run up to 180 days and can be extended while an investigation continues. A separate part of the same rule allows the department to bar an employer for up to three years, but that requires written notice and a right of appeal, and it has not been used here.
That distinction matters because of what is missing. As of mid-October the department had published no press release, no Federal Register notice and no written guidance explaining its legal basis or how long this lasts. Everything known about the action comes from what officials said at the microphone. Asked how long it would run, Vance said it would last as long as it needs to, and that the administration had tools to suspend it indefinitely but wanted the companies to change their behaviour instead.
It also did not come out of nowhere. The Labor Department's inspector general opened a nationwide investigation into alleged H-1B and PERM fraud in July. Cloudera was suspended for 180 days in May, and Cognizant and Cloudera were both suspended in September. October 8 was the third and widest step in that sequence.
A suspension is not a finding of guilt, and no charges have been announced against any of the eight. But because nothing is in writing, nobody — including the companies — can say for certain what is covered or when it ends. That uncertainty is itself the cost.