US green card restrictions on Indian technology companies could have an unintended consequence: encouraging American companies to assign more complex technology work to teams based in India. That is the argument advanced by Vineet Nair, former chief executive of HCL Technologies, after the United States announced that several major IT outsourcing firms had been suspended from using the PERM green card processing framework.
Nair’s intervention is important because it moves the discussion beyond the immediate impact on Indian employees seeking permanent residence in the US. His argument is that restrictions on moving Indian technology workers to American workplaces could accelerate a different movement: the transfer of technology responsibilities, decision-making and product work to India.
The claim remains a forecast by a former industry executive, not an established outcome. But it identifies a structural tension within the India-US technology relationship. For decades, Indian IT companies built their business models around combining engineers working at customer locations in the US with larger delivery teams in India. If immigration restrictions make the first part of that model more difficult, the second part could become more important.
The US announcement and the PERM process
According to the report, US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced that several prominent IT outsourcing companies had been suspended from the Program for Electronic Review Management, or PERM, green card processing framework. PERM is connected to the process through which employers seek permanent employment-based immigration for foreign workers.
The supplied report does not identify all the companies involved or specify the duration and precise conditions of the suspensions. It therefore does not establish the full operational impact on Indian IT firms or the number of workers whose applications may be affected. What it does establish is the immediate policy context in which Nair made his comments: the United States is seeking to make it harder for some Indian technology workers to enter or remain in the country through employment-linked immigration pathways.
Nair argued that the direct effect could be smaller than the headline suggests. He cited figures showing that 117,849 PERM certifications were issued last year, while Indian IT companies accounted for fewer than 1,400, or less than 2 per cent, of that total. These figures, as presented in the report, suggest that the specific restrictions may affect a relatively limited share of the overall PERM system.
That does not make the policy irrelevant to the technology industry. Immigration rules influence where employees are located, but they also shape how companies organise work. A relatively small number of affected workers can still matter if they occupy roles that connect American customers, Indian delivery centres and specialised technology teams.
From onsite delivery to distributed responsibility
Nair described the evolution of the Indian IT model in three broad stages. Initially, when an American customer had an important technology requirement, Indian companies sent engineers to the US. Over time, companies found that much of the work could be performed from India. This created the onsite-offshore model, in which a smaller group worked close to the client while a larger team delivered services from India.
The next transition, in Nair’s view, could involve more than shifting coding and maintenance work offshore. He pointed to architecture, product engineering, cyber security, artificial intelligence, industry solutions and ownership of products and intellectual property as the areas where the next opportunity may lie.
This distinction is central. The earlier offshore model was largely built around delivering work defined elsewhere. A higher-value model would require Indian teams to participate in deciding what should be built, shaping technology architecture and taking responsibility for outcomes. The change would be from supplying engineering capacity to owning more of the problem and, potentially, more of the resulting product.
Nair advised Indian teams working with American clients not to limit themselves to receiving instructions from New York or maintaining an existing technology platform for a global bank. Instead, he said they should help determine what the client builds and contribute to redesigning the bank itself. His comments point to a shift in the nature of the relationship, from execution under direction to greater involvement in product and business decisions.
The evidence supplied in the report does not show that this shift has already occurred at scale. It does, however, describe the conditions that could encourage it: restricted movement of workers, improved digital collaboration and technology that allows smaller teams to take responsibility for more complex work.
AI changes the employment equation
The second part of Nair’s argument concerns artificial intelligence and productivity. For roughly three decades, he said, growth in the Indian IT sector and growth in Indian IT employment moved together because companies generally hired more engineers as their business expanded.
According to Nair, AI-enabled productivity could weaken that link. If companies can use technology to handle more complex work without increasing employee numbers at the same rate, revenue growth may no longer translate into proportional hiring growth. The same teams could potentially take on more demanding responsibilities, although the report does not provide independent data on the scale or speed of this productivity effect.
This creates a more complicated opportunity for India’s technology workforce. The country could receive a larger share of American technology work while not necessarily seeing an equivalent expansion in conventional IT employment. Growth may increasingly depend on the capabilities of teams rather than simply their size.
That distinction matters for cities and urban economies where technology services have become major sources of formal employment, commercial real estate demand and supporting services. The report does not quantify the possible effect on Indian cities, office markets or employment. It nevertheless raises a question about the next phase of technology-led urban growth: whether it will be driven by larger workforces or by smaller teams handling more valuable functions.
A policy shift with an institutional chain reaction
The green card issue sits within a wider institutional chain. US immigration authorities and labour agencies influence whether employees can be located near American customers. Technology companies decide how to respond through hiring, delivery-centre expansion, remote collaboration and the allocation of responsibilities between countries. Indian teams then need the skills and organisational authority to take on work that was previously managed closer to the customer.
A restriction at the immigration stage therefore does not automatically produce a transfer of work to India. Companies may redesign projects, hire locally in the US, delay expansion or distribute responsibilities across multiple locations. The report contains no company-level responses confirming which of these options are being pursued.
The outcome will also depend on whether Indian technology teams can move up the value chain. Nair’s emphasis on architecture, cyber security, AI, product engineering and intellectual property suggests that access to more work will not be enough. The greater challenge will be developing the capacity to define products, make technical decisions and accept responsibility for business outcomes.
For the Indian IT industry, this would represent a change in competitive advantage. Nair said the sector had competed for the past 30 years on the price of Indian talent, while the next 30 years would depend on the capability of that talent. His statement frames the issue as a transition from labour arbitrage to expertise, though the report does not establish whether the industry as a whole is ready for that transition.
What the green card restrictions reveal
The immediate policy dispute concerns immigration, but the deeper issue is the geography of technology work. American companies may want access to Indian expertise while facing political pressure to limit the movement of Indian workers into the US. This creates an incentive to separate access to talent from physical location, provided that collaboration systems and organisational structures can support it.
India’s advantage in such a scenario would not simply be its existing IT workforce. It would depend on whether Indian teams are trusted with higher-level functions and whether companies invest in the skills required to manage them. The difference between maintaining a platform and helping redesign a business is substantial. It involves product judgement, sector knowledge, cyber security responsibility, architecture and ownership of intellectual property.
The reported figures also caution against treating the PERM action as an immediate industry-wide shock. If Indian IT companies accounted for fewer than 1,400 of the 117,849 certifications cited by Nair, the direct numerical impact may be limited. The larger significance lies in the signal it sends about how companies might structure future work and where they might place specialised teams.
The evidence currently supports a possibility, not a conclusion. A statement by a former HCL chief executive cannot establish that American technology work will move to India, nor can it show how many jobs or projects could be affected. The reported US announcement also requires closer examination of the companies covered, the grounds for suspension and the duration of the restrictions.
The central urban and economic question is whether India’s technology centres can capture more decision-making power, rather than merely more delivery volume. If they do, the effects could extend beyond outsourcing revenue to the organisation of skilled employment and the evolution of technology clusters. If they do not, tighter US immigration rules may simply produce a more constrained labour market without creating a durable transfer of higher-value work.
For now, the confirmed development is the reported suspension of several IT outsourcing firms from the PERM processing framework and Nair’s assessment of its possible consequences. The developments to monitor are the US authorities’ detailed orders, company responses, changes in employee mobility and evidence of American clients assigning architecture, product engineering, cyber security, AI and intellectual property responsibilities to teams in India.
