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Multiple reportsAs of September 8, 2026

Proposed — not in force

Cognizant and Cloudera PERM filings are suspended, says the Labor IG — a suspension cancels nothing already approved

On 8 September 2026 Anthony D'Esposito, the Inspector General of the US Department of Labor, wrote on his official account that two employers' permanent labour certification filings had been stopped. At 13:49 UTC: "@Cognizant's PERM filings are suspended. @DOLOIG is on the hunt." At 14:51 UTC, naming a second company: "One more. @cloudera: PERM filings SUSPENDED." Both posts tag the Acting Secretary of Labor. No government document says this. We checked the Labor Department newsroom, the Inspector General's press releases, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification's announcements and its published debarment lists, the Federal Register, and Cognizant's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and none of them names either company. That silence is what the rules produce rather than evidence of anything: under 20 CFR 656.31(b)(1) the Department may suspend processing while a fraud investigation runs, and it must notify the employer in writing — it is not required to publish anything, and it does not. Debarments are published; suspensions are not. There is a known investigation for this to sit inside. On 8 July 2026 the Inspector General's office announced it had "launched a major investigation and is intensifying enforcement efforts to combat fraud and human trafficking" in the H-1B and PERM systems. That announcement names no company.

What has not changed

A suspension stops processing. It is not a revocation, and it is not a debarment. A labour certification you already hold stays valid. The USCIS Policy Manual states that "Permanent labor certifications remain valid unless and until they are revoked", and revocation is a separate process: under 20 CFR 656.32(b)(1) it requires a Notice of Intent to Revoke setting out the grounds in detail and 30 days to reply. A pending application is frozen, not denied. Under 20 CFR 656.31(b)(2) a suspension lasts initially for up to 180 days and can be extended, and under 656.31(d), where no finding of fraud follows, the Certifying Officer decides each pending application "on the merits of the application". Even after an adverse finding the regulation is case-by-case rather than a blanket refusal. Neither company is on any published debarment list. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification's PERM debarment list contains two entries, both dated 29 May 2025, and neither is Cognizant or Cloudera. This is about two employers. It changes nothing about the PERM programme, nothing about H-1B status, nothing about anybody's ability to work, and nothing about any other employer's filings. One thing we cannot tell you, and will not guess: no public source says what happens to an approved I-140, or to a priority date retained under it, if the labour certification beneath it is later invalidated. What is clear is that a suspension of processing reaches neither, because it acts only on applications that have not been decided.

What to do

There is nothing for you to file, nothing to pay and nothing to withdraw. Do not resign a job, cancel a filing, or bring a plan forward because of this. If you work at either company, the useful step is to ask your employer's immigration team directly, because they would know before you do: the regulation requires the Department to notify the employer in writing, so a real suspension arrives as a letter to the company rather than as an announcement. Ask whether such a notice has been received, and what it says about applications already filed. If you hold an approved labour certification or an approved Form I-140, keep the approval notices you already have. If you are being asked to pay anybody for advice about this, that is the moment to be careful: an enforcement story that no employer can yet explain is exactly what this audience gets targeted with.

Next update

We re-read the Inspector General's account, the Labor Department newsroom, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification's announcements and its published debarment lists by 22 September 2026, and again whenever either company or the Department says anything on the record. If a document naming either company appears anywhere, this alert is rewritten around the document and stops being a report of what an official said.

Sources