The U.S. Department of Labor is suspending eight companies from the PERM program, the labor certification step before many employer-sponsored Green Cards, federal officials announced Oct. 8, 2026.
Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling named the firms as Cognizant, Infosys, Microsoft, Adobe, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini at a White House Fraud Task Force press conference led by Vice President JD Vance.
Officials cited ongoing investigations into some of the companies but haven’t publicly detailed their allegations or set an end date for the suspensions.
What does a PERM suspension cover?
A PERM suspension blocks an employer’s labor certification cases from moving forward. Sonderling said that includes pending cases: “We will not accept any new or process any pending permanent labor certification applications involving these companies.”
Vance said the suspension is “going to last as long as it needs to.”
PERM has come under broad scrutiny from the Trump administration. In May, the Labor Department paused Cloudera’s PERM applications for 180 days in a joint action with the Justice Department. In August, OpenAI agreed to a $3.2 million settlement with the Justice Department over its PERM recruiting, admitting no wrongdoing. Cognizant’s new PERM filings were paused in September as part of a federal fraud investigation.
Vance focused his remarks on layoffs of U.S. workers at Microsoft. This comes after Executive Order 14431, which directs agencies to weigh employers’ past and planned layoffs in H-1B reviews.
A Labor Department rule to overhaul PERM recruitment has been under White House review since Sept. 14, 2026 but has not been made available to the public yet.
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Officials haven’t released written details or a legal basis for the suspensions.
Vance said the suspension “could apply to a number of other technology companies as well.”
What else did the administration announce?
Labor Department Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito announced an investigation into J-1 visa use at nine universities: Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech, Arizona State, and MIT. He said subpoenas had been served.
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