Cognizant PERM suspension deepens uncertainty for Indians for green card
The US government’s suspension of permanent labor certification applications filed by Cognizant Technology Solutions has created fresh uncertainty for thousands of Indian technology professionals seeking employment-based green cards.
The Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General said Cognizant’s PERM filings had been suspended while federal authorities investigated possible fraud and practices that could adversely affect American workers. The White House fraud task force is also associated with the investigation. However, the government has not disclosed the number of applications affected, the precise allegations against Cognizant or how long the suspension will continue.
The US action presently appears to prevent Cognizant from submitting fresh PERM applications. It does not, by itself, cancel employees’ H-1B status, approved I-140 petitions or green cards already issued. The position of PERM applications filed before the suspension will depend on the scope of the government’s order and the outcome of the investigation.
Cognizant had not issued a detailed public response when the action was reported.
PERM, or Program Electronic Review Management, is generally the first major stage through which an American employer sponsors a foreign employee for permanent residence under the EB-2 or EB-3 category.
Before receiving labor certification, an employer must test the US labor market and demonstrate that there are no able, willing, qualified and available American workers for the position at the prescribed wage. Once the Department of Labor certifies the application, the employer may file an I-140 immigrant petition with US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The employee can obtain permanent residence only when an immigrant visa number becomes available.
For Indian professionals, obtaining labor certification is therefore only the beginning of an extraordinarily long process.
Indians caught in numerical bottleneck
US immigration law ordinarily makes at least 140,000 employment-based immigrant visas available annually. The number can rise when unused family-sponsored visa numbers are carried forward. For fiscal year 2026, the State Department placed the worldwide employment-based limit at 186,317.
The law also imposes a seven per cent per-country ceiling across numerically limited family and employment categories. For FY 2026, the combined preference limit translates into a per-country ceiling of 28,862, subject to carryover provisions and the availability of otherwise unused visas. The ceiling is not a guaranteed Indian allocation.
Spouses and children are counted within these limits. Consequently, a green card issued to the spouse or child of a sponsored employee consumes one of the available immigrant visa numbers even though that person is not the principal worker.
The annual number available to Indians can fluctuate because unused visas may move between preference categories or become available to oversubscribed countries. Nevertheless, annual supply remains far below Indian demand. The US issued 148,960 employment-based green cards worldwide in FY 2020, 193,340 in FY 2021, 270,280 in FY 2022, 196,760 in FY 2023 and 171,120 in FY 2024, according to an analysis by the National Foundation for American Policy. These worldwide figures include principal workers and their dependants.
NFAP estimated that, as of December 2025, nearly 996,600 Indians were waiting in the first three employment-based categories, accounting for approximately 79 per cent of that backlog. Its estimates included about 731,566 people in EB-2 and 213,414 in EB-3.
The September 2026 US Visa Bulletin demonstrates the scale of the delay. The EB-1 final-action date for India was October 15, 2022, while EB-3 was processing applicants with priority dates before January 1, 2014. EB-2 was marked “unavailable” for final action during the month, meaning that no additional green cards could be approved in that category until numbers became available again.
These dates do not provide an exact waiting time for a new applicant because visa availability can advance, remain unchanged or move backwards. They show, however, that the government was still dealing with Indian EB-3 cases carrying priority dates more than 12 years old. NFAP estimated that, without legislative reform, an Indian entering the EB-2 queue in 2026 could theoretically face a 179-year wait. This is a projection based on the backlog and annual visa supply, not a processing-time guarantee; in practical terms, it means many new applicants may never receive a green card during their working lives under the existing system.
Wider enforcement drive
The Cognizant action follows a series of federal cases examining whether employers conducted genuine recruitment before sponsoring foreign workers.
In April 2026, the Justice Department sued data-software company Cloudera, alleging that it created a separate recruitment process for PERM-linked positions and instructed US applicants to use an email address that could not receive external messages. Cloudera’s PERM filings were subsequently suspended. The allegations have not yet been established by a final judicial decision.
In August, OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig agreed to pay $3.2 million, comprising $1.2 million in civil penalties and a $2-million fund for affected applicants. The Justice Department alleged that the companies required applications for certain PERM positions to be sent by post while accepting electronic applications for other jobs, advertised some positions on late-night radio and omitted them from external employment websites. The companies denied wrongdoing while settling the matter. Click here.
“It is illegal to discriminate against U.S. workers by preferring temporary visa holders for jobs,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This substantial settlement ensures that OpenAI redresses harm and changes its recruitment practices so that U.S. workers receive a fair opportunity for highly sought-after technology positions.”
Apple reached a $25-million settlement in November 2023. The Justice Department alleged that Apple failed to advertise certain PERM positions on its public careers website and required candidates to submit paper applications, although the company normally accepted electronic applications. The settlement included a $6.75-million civil penalty and up to $18.25 million for eligible workers. Click here.
The largest earlier warning came in October 2021, when Facebook, now Meta, agreed to pay up to $14.25 million. The government alleged that the company had reserved certain permanent positions for temporary visa holders and used recruitment procedures that deterred American applicants. Though not a binding judicial precedent, the settlement became an important enforcement benchmark for PERM recruitment. Click here.
The cases expose the tension at the heart of the employment-based immigration system. American companies legitimately require access to specialised international talent, particularly where domestic skills are scarce. But PERM cannot be reduced to a paperwork exercise designed to preserve a position for a preselected employee.
The Cognizant suspension will not resolve America’s structural green card backlog. It may instead leave employees — who may have had no role in their employer’s recruitment practices — facing further delays in a queue already measured in decades. Enforcement against sham recruitment is necessary, but the US Congress must also confront a quota system that keeps highly skilled, lawfully employed professionals and their families in prolonged immigration uncertainty.
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