E-Paper
US suspends Cognizant's green card filings: How will the move affect Indians?
PERM filings refer to the labour certification process that US employers must complete before sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment based green card.
Prefer HTon Google
Months after specifically mentioning the company under an investigation for alleged fraud, the United States Department of Labour suspended India-founded and US-listed tech giant Cognizant’s ability to file for new green card sponsorship.
The department's Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito announced that the company’s PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) filings had been suspended. This refers to the labour certification process that US employers must complete before sponsoring a foreign worker for an employment based green card. D’Esposito said technology firm Cloudera also faced a suspension of its PERM filings.
The move is set to impact Indians nationals too, with the company, founded in Chennai in 1994 and now headquartered in the US, receiving 3,510 approved H-1B visa petitions, as per the latest data for fiscal year 2026 provided by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Deep Dive
While the suspension of PERM filings does not directly affect H-1B petitions, the company being probed by the labour department raises concerns. Cognizant is typically one of the largest petitioners for H-1B visas in corporate America, and India accounts for the largest share of H-1B beneficiaries in the US. This placed it sixth overall in the US, behind Amazon, TCS, Infosys, Apple and Microsoft.
Indian nationals made up around 71% of approved H-1B beneficiaries in fiscal year 2024, US government data in 2024 showed. Thousands of Indian professionals, particularly in technology, engineering, research and healthcare sectors, use the H-1B program as a route to gain employment in US, with the Indian IT services companies being among the largest users of the visa system.
What did the US labour department say?
The suspension came amid an investigation into alleged visa fraud, with the department's Inspector General D’Esposito saying, “Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated.”
D’Esposito had hinted at regulatory action against Cognizant some months ago in a post on X. In response to posts by anonymous accounts complaining about visa abuse carried out by the firm, D’Esposito asked users to “stay tuned” using his official Department of Labour handle.
D'Esposito had then said whistleblowers had raised concerns about some of the biggest users of the system, with Cognizant being named during the announcement of the probe. The investigation was expected to examine allegations of potential misuse of employment-based visa programs as the administration expands its fraud crackdown.
“We have whistleblowers talking about some of the biggest companies, like Cognizant... and we are going to work side by side with the president and vice president's fraud task force to exhaust every lead,” D'Esposito had told Fox Business.
What are PERM filings?
PERM, or Program Electronic Review Management, is the process through which American employers seek approval from the Department of Labour to sponsor foreign workers for permanent residency. Under the process, the employers generally need to demonstrate that no qualified and available US workers exist for the role, and that hiring a foreign worker would not adversely affect the wages or working conditions for American employees.
The US labour department usually sets a prevailing wage which represents the minimum amount that the job must pay, following which the sponsoring firm must advertise domestically for interested applicants to fill the job. Once a mandatory waiting period is concluded, the firm can proceed with the sponsorship process. PERM certification is the first step to securing an employment-based green card for a foreign worker.
