{"id":128150,"date":"2026-10-09T11:02:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=128150"},"modified":"2026-10-09T11:02:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T05:32:29","slug":"perm-suspension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/perm-suspension\/","title":{"rendered":"PERM Suspension: Why the US Targeted Indian IT Firms"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>PERM Suspension Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US government has suspended several <\/span><b>large Indian IT firms<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini) from a key programme that lets skilled foreign workers gain permanent residency, citing alleged fraud and claiming foreign workers took jobs at the cost of American workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is a major blow for Indian professionals looking to work at these companies in the US. Last month, the US had already announced Cognizant\u2019s suspension, without specifying the allegations, the number of applications affected, or the duration.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Part of a Broader Crackdown<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This action represents a clear broadening of the crackdown on foreign workers that has become central policy under President Donald Trump.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Technology and IT services companies face particularly heightened scrutiny over their reliance on foreign workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">US authorities have stepped up investigations into alleged <\/span><b>misuse<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of both the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/h-1b-visa\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b>H-1B<\/b><\/a><\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/h-1b-visa\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0<\/a>and PERM programmes<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including claims of:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wage undercutting<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fraudulent filings<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Displacement of American workers<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This scrutiny matters enormously for Indian professionals, who account for a large share of H-1B beneficiaries and employment-based Green Card applicants.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US administration\u2019s core justification is that foreign workers hired by these companies reduced job opportunities for Americans.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As per a report, since 2009, the impacted companies have requested permanent residency for almost 3 million foreign workers, receiving over 230,000 H-1B visa approvals and over 100,000 permanent labour certifications.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The US administration characterised this as hundreds of thousands of jobs that were taken from American workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Understanding PERM: The Programme at the Centre of This<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>PERM <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(Program Electronic Review Management) is the system through which employers generally <\/span><b>obtain labour certification<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> before sponsoring a foreign employee for an employment-based Green Card.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>Key Features<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike a visa application (made primarily by an individual), PERM filing is done by the employer on behalf of the worker.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before filing, the employer must obtain a prevailing wage determination for the position and carry out prescribed recruitment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The process is meant to establish that permanently hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect job opportunities, wages, or working conditions of US workers.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once the Labour Department certifies the application, the employer can proceed to the next stage of the Green Card process.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>PERM vs H-1B \u2014 An Important Distinction<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">H-1B is a temporary, non-immigrant work visa allowing US employers to employ foreign professionals in specialty occupations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PERM is part of the process for obtaining permanent residency \u2014 a fundamentally different track.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>How This Affects Indian Workers<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For employees whose Green Card process hasn\u2019t yet reached the PERM filing stage: The immediate consequence is delay.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They cannot make fresh PERM filings while the suspension is in place.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This means they cannot secure a priority date or begin moving through the employer-sponsored Green Card process.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Why This Hits Indians Especially Hard<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: India already faces a severe backlog.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the US State Department\u2019s September 2026 Visa Bulletin, the <\/span><b>EB-2 category<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (Employment-Based Second Preference) for India was listed as \u201cunavailable\u201d for final action.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The EB-3 final-action date was January 1, 2014 \u2014 meaning applicants from over a decade ago are still being processed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The system also imposes per-country limits on employment-based Green Cards, disproportionately affecting <\/span><b>high-demand countries like India<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>An Additional H-1B Complication<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">US rules allow certain H-1B holders to extend their stay beyond the normal six-year limit if a labour certification was filed sufficiently early.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For workers approaching this six-year deadline, being unable to start the PERM process could become a serious problem.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Workers who already have approved petitions and are merely waiting because a Green Card number is unavailable are in a different position \u2014 they can, subject to rules, still qualify for H-1B extensions of up to three years at a time.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Conclusion<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The PERM suspension doesn\u2019t cancel existing Green Card queues, but it freezes new entries into them \u2014 and for Indian applicants already facing a decade-plus backlog, a freeze functions much like a setback.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Framed by Washington as closing a fraud loophole, the move lands squarely on the companies and workers most dependent on this pathway: Indian IT professionals, for whom the priority date is often the only thing standing between temporary status and permanent residency.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/explained-global\/us-perm-suspension-indian-it-firms-green-card-workers-explained-10913011\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">IE<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/tech\/us-suspends-infosys-tcs-wipro-hcl-cognizant-from-green-card-program-amid-visa-fraud-claims-14051517.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FP<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The PERM suspension affecting Indian IT firms delays employer-sponsored Green Card filings, raising concerns for Indian professionals facing lengthy US immigration backlogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":128155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[60,10758,22,59],"class_list":["post-128150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","tag-mains-articles","tag-perm-suspension","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-mains-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128150"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128161,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128150\/revisions\/128161"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}