The Labor Department has stopped handling permanent labor certification filings for Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe. For most employer-sponsored green cards, that is the first step.
PERM Suspension: What Was Announced
The PERM suspension was announced on Thursday at a White House press conference on anti-fraud efforts. Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said the department was suspending Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL and Capgemini from the Permanent Labor Certification programme. He added Microsoft and Adobe to the list and said both face multiple active federal investigations.
The rule is simple. The department will not accept new PERM applications involving these companies, and it will not process the ones already waiting.
Vice President JD Vance, who leads the Anti-Fraud Task Force, stood beside Sonderling. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller was also there.
What PERM Does in the Green Card Process
PERM is the labor certification step. Before an employer can sponsor a foreign worker for most employment-based green cards, it has to show the Labor Department that no qualified, willing and available US worker can fill the job. Only after the department certifies that can the employer file the next petition.
It is a different thing from the H-1B visa, which is a temporary work permit. The reports reviewed do not say any existing H-1B visa or earlier approval has been cancelled.
So the suspension closes one specific gate. Nothing moves through it until the department says otherwise.
The Government’s Case Against the Companies
Keith Sonderling gave numbers to back the move. He said the named companies have requested almost three million foreign workers since 2009. They received more than 230,000 H-1B approvals and over 100,000 permanent labor certifications. In his words, that amounts to hundreds of thousands of jobs taken from American workers. That is the government’s reading of the data, and no independent review of it has been reported.
JD Vance said the programme is full of fraud. He aimed most of his criticism at Microsoft. He alleged the company laid off 6,000 American workers in 2025, then received more than 6,000 H-1B approvals and filed 3,682 PERM applications, nearly 1,000 of them for positions tied to the laid-off workers.
Those are allegations. The reports reviewed contained no response from Microsoft, Adobe or the six outsourcing firms.
Who Is Affected and How Big They Are in Visa Terms
These are not small players. Cognizant alone had 3,510 approved H-1B petitions for fiscal year 2026, which put it sixth among all employers, behind Amazon, TCS, Infosys, Apple and Microsoft.
IT services companies have leaned on visa sponsorship for years to staff client projects abroad. Several have cut that reliance recently by hiring more people locally and shifting contract work offshore. Microsoft and Adobe sit in a different category. They are direct technology employers, and their presence on the list shows the action is not limited to outsourcing firms.
What the PERM Suspension Means for Workers and Employers
Workers waiting on sponsorship at these companies stall at the first gate. A pending application now sits untouched. People who already hold an approval may be in a different position, and the reports do not say how those cases are treated. Much depends on each person’s visa status and how far their green card case has gone.
Analysts have raised the possibility that some affected employees move to other employers or leave the country altogether. That is speculation for now.
Employers face their own problem. If a company cannot offer a path to permanent residency, keeping experienced staff gets harder. And nobody has said how long the suspension will last.
How This Follows the September Cognizant Suspension
This did not come out of nowhere. Last month, the Labor Department’s Inspector General, Anthony D’Esposito, announced that Cognizant’s PERM filings were suspended while investigators looked into alleged fraud involving H-1B and PERM. Calls quickly followed for similar action against other large IT services firms.
Markets noticed. Indian IT stocks lost roughly ₹55,000 crore in market value in a single session after that announcement. Thursday’s decision applies the same step to eight companies at once.
Political Backdrop to the PERM Suspension
CNBC reported that the move comes as the administration keeps targeting immigration and foreign hiring programmes ahead of November’s midterm elections. Officials call it a fraud crackdown. Critics of blanket suspensions usually argue that they also catch employers who followed the rules.
Also Read: Global Bond Sell-Off Deepens as US Treasury Yields Hit 24-Year High, UK Borrowing Costs Pass 6%
Beyond the announcement
Putting Microsoft and Adobe on the same list as the outsourcing firms sends a message to every large employer that uses PERM. Expect legal and compliance teams across the sector to start checking their own filings.
Analysis
The PERM suspension hits the stage that decides whether skilled foreign workers can stay permanently. It does not touch the temporary visa, which limits the short-term damage to projects but not to individual careers. Four questions remain open: how long the suspension lasts, whether the companies can challenge it, how many applications are stuck, and what the companies themselves will say. Watch for those answers first.
Explore more expert insights, leadership stories, and business strategies at GlobeVox Leaders
