India's Commerce Minister Says Fewer H-1B Visas Are 'Absolutely Good' for India, Days After Washington Froze Green Card Filings at Eight Employers

India’s commerce and industry minister, Piyush Goyal, says Indian professionals getting fewer H-1B visas is “absolutely good for the Indian economy,” and that in seven and a half years in the job he has never raised H-1B visas or green cards in his talks with the United States. His remarks, delivered at an Economic Times startup awards event and reported on Oct. 10 by The Wire and the Free Press Journal, came days after the U.S. Labor Department suspended Microsoft, Adobe and six large IT services firms from the PERM labor certification program, the first step in most employment-based green card cases. For the Indian nationals who hold most U.S. H-1B visas, the signal from New Delhi’s top trade official is plain: their green card troubles are not on his negotiating agenda.

The timing is what gives a speech at a startup awards ceremony real weight. On Oct. 9, India’s Ministry of External Affairs called Vice President JD Vance’s description of foreign tech workers as “indentured servants” “deeply offensive” and said the U.S. steps “do not advance the shared ambitions of both countries,” as Immigration Analytics reported. Within roughly a day, the minister who leads India’s trade talks with Washington was describing fewer U.S. work visas as an economic gain. Read together, the two statements suggest New Delhi objects far more to how Washington talks about Indian workers than to what Washington is doing to their immigration cases.

The brain-drain case, in the minister’s words

Goyal framed the H-1B pipeline as a loss for India rather than a benefit. “Some of our best talent over the last particularly 25-30 years has gone away to the US,” he said, according to the Free Press Journal, adding that he wonders what would have happened if those professionals had built their businesses and research in India. According to The Wire, he said fewer H-1B visas would “probably” give India’s startup ecosystem “a greater thrust,” and argued that Indians working remotely for American companies could be hired at “maybe one-fifth or one-sixth” the cost of an immigrant worker, with only “a few” needing to be physically in the United States. He did not cite a source for that cost comparison, and Immigration Analytics could not verify it.

On the PERM suspension itself, Goyal offered a single line, as reported by The Wire: “I heard Tata say that they will not be hit at all by this.” He also drew a firm boundary around his own portfolio. “Immigration isn’t an FTA issue or directly related to trade,” he said, while allowing that the movement of people who deliver cross-border services is a trade matter. What he did not do is equally telling. Neither he nor the foreign ministry, in the statements reported so far, asked Washington to lift the suspension or addressed the workers whose pending cases are now frozen.

Who carries the cost of a frozen front door

The people most exposed to the PERM suspension are overwhelmingly Indian nationals. In fiscal 2023, 72 percent of approved H-1B petitions were for workers born in India and 12 percent for workers born in China, according to USCIS data summarized by the Congressional Research Service. Most of those workers who want to stay permanently go through PERM, because the filing date of the labor certification becomes their place in the green card line.

That line is already far longer for Indians than for anyone else, because no single country may receive more than 7 percent of the employment-based green cards issued each year. In the State Department’s October 2026 Visa Bulletin, the final action date for India in the EB-2 category is Nov. 1, 2013, against Jan. 1, 2025, for most other countries. In EB-3 it is Jan. 1, 2014, against May 15, 2024. By Immigration Analytics’ calculation from those dates, an Indian EB-2 applicant needs a priority date more than 11 years earlier than an applicant from most of the world to be eligible for a green card this month, and an Indian EB-3 applicant more than 10 years earlier. A PERM suspension stops workers at the eight employers from getting into that queue at all.

Goyal’s comment about Tata Consultancy Services fits a claim Nasscom, the Indian IT industry body, made on Oct. 9: that only a small number of employees at Indian IT firms move from H-1B status to permanent residence through PERM, according to YourStory. Nasscom gave no figures. If that is accurate, the suspension may bite the outsourcing firms’ business models less than it bites individual employees with cases in progress, and it may fall hardest at Microsoft, which Vance said had obtained nearly 3,000 green cards for workers in a single year, as this site reported. That is analysis, not a finding: neither the Labor Department nor the companies have released the number of pending PERM cases now on hold.

Two Indian arguments, one American policy

Goyal’s view is not the only one on record from India this week, and the sharpest counterpoint comes from his own government. The foreign ministry’s Oct. 9 statement argued that talent mobility benefits U.S. companies through innovation, productivity, competitiveness and job creation. Nasscom has long held that immigration and skilled talent mobility are separate issues that should not be treated as one. The diaspora the minister describes as lost talent also sends money home: Indians abroad remitted $135.46 billion in fiscal 2024-25, a record at the time, according to Reserve Bank of India data reported by All India Radio’s News On Air, though that figure covers workers in every country, not only the United States.

On the American side, the administration has presented the PERM suspension as a response to fraud and to employers that lay off U.S. workers while sponsoring foreign ones. Microsoft has disputed Vance’s account of its hiring, saying about 80 percent of its recent H-1B filings were extensions or status changes for people who already worked there, and the open legal question, as this site has noted, is whether a blanket suspension without public, company-specific findings can withstand a court challenge. Goyal’s remarks do not settle either debate. In our assessment, they do remove one source of pressure that affected workers might have hoped for: on this evidence, India’s trade minister is not inclined to lobby Washington on their behalf.

Immigration Analytics will update this story as Labor Department guidance, company responses and court filings become available. This article is for general information and is not legal advice. The situation is changing quickly, so please consult an immigration attorney about your specific case.

Sources

Vasanth Vaidyanathan, Esq.

Administrator

Vasanth Vaidyanathan is an immigration attorney with over 20 years of experience focused exclusively on U.S. immigration and nationality law. He holds a LL.M. from California Western School of Law, San Deigo and advises individuals and businesses on employment and family-based immigration matters, including H-1B, PERM, EB categories, and adjustment of status. He has also been a featured speaker at immigration seminars across the U.S. To reach Vasanth visit: https://www.vnathan.com/

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