Federal authorities announced Thursday that participation in a pathway-to-residency scheme tied to employer sponsorship would be paused for a number of technology and IT companies, among them Microsoft and Cognizant. Top officials cited fraud allegations as justification for the decision, with their statements describing a pattern in which businesses had drawn on the program to bring in lower-paid foreign workers rather than retain domestic ones.
Permanent Labor Certification — known by the acronym PERM — serves as a pathway through which technology companies and outsourcing firms sponsor workers for employment-based residency, and it is this mechanism that the suspension places on hold. Federal authorities announced a halt on both incoming and outstanding PERM filings for a defined group of employers.
When the PERM system took effect in 2005, it brought an end to the paperwork-intensive process previously called "Alien Employment Certification," with the restructured approach aimed at resolving the processing backlogs that had accumulated under the old framework. The PERM process provides a pathway through which employers can petition the Department of Labor to establish a foreign worker's eligibility for permanent residency in the United States. Sponsoring employers in the US hold responsibility for launching the application procedure, rather than the workers themselves.
Before the US Citizenship and Immigration Services can authorise a foreign national to fill a given post, the Labor Department is required to first confirm on record that no sufficient pool of qualified domestic workers exists for that opening, and that bringing in an overseas hire will leave the pay rates and job conditions of comparable American workers undisturbed.
Beyond the PERM process and family-based pathways, those seeking permanent residency on their own initiative may turn to self-petition options — among them the EB-1A category, which covers individuals recognised for extraordinary ability, and the EB-2 National Interest Waiver. For overseas professionals holding temporary work authorisation, the PERM program functions as the procedural pathway through which permanent residency eligibility is pursued.
Across the technology sector, workers numbering in the hundreds of thousands enter companies on temporary visa arrangements — the H-1B being among the most common — before pursuing a path toward permanent residency. Employer-sponsored pathways to permanent residency through PERM represent one avenue available to foreign workers, and those without access to that process may find themselves extending their time on temporary visa status.
Attracting overseas workers may grow more difficult for employers, given that the prospect of eventually securing permanent US residency ranks among the primary draws pulling internationally based professionals toward American job offers.
A notice of suspension was extended to Microsoft, Adobe, and a group of the world's largest IT providers — among them Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies, and Capgemini. Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet's Google face no restrictions on joining the programme.
Vice President JD Vance has alleged, without presenting supporting documentation, that employers are exploiting the PERM program as a mechanism to push out domestic workers in favour of foreign hires at lower pay rates. Vance, speaking Thursday, urged Microsoft to prioritise hiring from the domestic workforce, while the worker visa programme faced additional pressure from a proposed $100,000 fee on new H-1B petitions — a measure targeting foreign skilled-worker applications that courts have since placed on hold — with the suspensions tied to that broader policy shift.
Under the H-1B programme, qualifying foreign nationals may take up employment in the United States on a non-immigrant basis, with the authorised period of stay typically capped at six years. PERM operates as a government pathway through which employers can obtain lasting certification of a foreign worker's labour eligibility. Based on available information, people who already hold H-1B visas appear to fall outside the scope of the freeze.
Certain analysts cautioned that, even where PERM suspensions are directed at particular companies, restrictions of that kind may reduce the country's appeal to highly trained workers from abroad, potentially weakening its standing in the global marketplace — a view one commentator captured by arguing that excluding skilled foreign workers does not, in practice, shield domestic employment.
Chad Sparber, who directs the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs at Colgate University, noted that overseas employment represents an additional arena where international workers may find themselves in direct competition with American workers, beyond any domestic job market dynamics.
Ahmet Gulek, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford's Immigration Policy Lab, has noted that permanent residency serves as the principal pathway through which foreign workers with in-demand skills can remain in the country long-term, and that without access to that pathway, some workers are likely to depart while others may choose not to come at all, even on a temporary basis.
