Washington, DC: There could be implications for foreign workers seeking US employment-based Green Cards with Washington suspending permanent labour certification, or PERM, filings by Chennai-founded IT services company Cognizant and software firm Cloudera.
This comes even as the Trump administration steps up its crackdown on alleged fraud and misuse of employment visa programmes. The US Department of Labour has not disclosed the specific allegations against either company though.
The decision could affect Indian technology professionals seeking Green Cards through Cognizant.
Authorities have not revealed how many PERM applications are affected or how long the suspension will last.
While announcing the suspension of the companies’ PERM filings, the US department of labour Inspector General, Anthony D’Esposito, said: “Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated.”
The investigation into the two companies was conducted in coordination with the White House Fraud Task Force and other officials, he said.
While referring to Cognizant, he said its PERM filings had been suspended and that the department of labour’s office of Inspector General was investigating. In another statement, D’Esposito said authorities were following “facts, fraud and finances”.
The development comes after the Trump administration launched a major investigation in July into alleged fraud involving the H-1B and PERM employment programmes, as reported by The Indian Express.
Neither company has released a statement yet.
PERM stands for Program Electronic Review Management. It is the department of labour’s process for certifying that a US employer has tested the labour market and found that there are not sufficient qualified, willing and available US workers for a particular permanent job, and that hiring a foreign worker will not adversely affect wages and working conditions.
Employers must obtain a prevailing wage determination for the position and complete the applicable recruitment and notice requirements, before filing a PERM application.
Cognizant was founded in Chennai in 1994 and is now headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey. It remains a major US employer of foreign technology workers. USCIS data cited in recent reports show that Cognizant had received 3,510 H-1B petition approvals as of June 30, compared with 9,413 in 2020.
The PERM suspension could therefore matter to employees pursuing employer-sponsored permanent residency, although the government has not said how many workers or applications are affected.
Cloudera was founded in Burlingame, California, in 2008 by Christophe Bisciglia, Amr Awadallah, Jeff Hammerbacher and Mike Olson.