For thousands of Indian professionals building careers in the United States, a green card is the finish line of a long, uncertain race. This week, that finish line moved further away for some. News of the Cognizant PERM suspension, along with a similar freeze affecting Cloudera PERM filings, has left many employees wondering what happens to their plans.
What makes it harder is how little is known. Authorities have not disclosed the allegations behind the suspension, or how long it will last.
What a PERM Suspension Actually Means
PERM, short for Program Electronic Review Management, is the labour certification step that most employer-sponsored green card applications must pass through. An employer has to show that hiring a foreign worker will not displace qualified American workers. Without that certification, the process cannot move forward.
When a company’s PERM filings are suspended, the effect is blunt. Employees who were waiting for their employer to start or complete this step are stuck. Since everything that follows depends on this first approval, a pause here can delay the whole green card delay timeline, which for Indian nationals is already measured in years, sometimes decades, because of country-based caps.
For someone who has spent eight or ten years on a temporary work visa, even a few months of uncertainty can feel enormous.
Not Just One Company’s Problem
Cognizant is not alone in relying on this route. Other Indian IT majors, including TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCLTech, also use the programme to sponsor staff for permanent residency. That is why the news is being watched so closely across the industry. If scrutiny of one company’s filings widens, others could feel the pressure too.
Nothing in the available information suggests the other firms face similar action, and it would be wrong to assume so. But employees at these companies are understandably paying attention, because the same pathway underpins their futures as well.
The Numbers Tell a Bigger Story
The suspension arrives against a backdrop of shrinking reliance on foreign workers at Cognizant. Its approved H-1B petitions fell to 3,510 in 2026, down from 9,413 in 2020. That is a drop of more than 60 percent in six years.
Several forces likely sit behind a decline like that. Tighter visa rules, higher costs, greater scrutiny and a push by IT companies to hire more locally in the US and to move work offshore all play a part. Whatever the exact mix, the direction is clear: the old model of sending large numbers of Indian engineers abroad on H-1B visa India pipelines is shrinking.
The Human Side of the Story
Behind every filing is a person with a life built around a date. Someone may have bought a home, enrolled a child in school, or chosen not to move back to India because they expected permanent residency to arrive eventually. A spouse may be waiting on a work permit that depends on the same timeline.
When news like this breaks, the first reaction is usually anxiety, followed by a flood of questions in WhatsApp groups and online forums. Will my case be affected? Should I switch employers? Is it safer to wait? Those are hard questions to answer without official details, and the lack of clarity is arguably the most stressful part.
What Affected Employees Can Do
Nobody should make drastic decisions based on rumours, but a few sensible steps are worth considering:
Speak to your employer’s HR or immigration team. They are the best source of updates specific to your case.
Consult an independent immigration attorney. A A second opinion can help you gain insight into your options on your own, not just based on company messaging.
Arrange your papers neatly.If your situation changes, approval notices and employment letters are important.
Don’t be too quick to judge a job. Switching employers can impact your position in the queue so seek the correct legal advice first.
None of this is legal advice, and every case differs. But being informed and calm usually beats reacting to the loudest voice online.
Looking Beyond the US
The story has also prompted a wider question, one that Business Today has been asking: where can Indian tech professionals find opportunities beyond the United States?
It is a fair question, and a more practical one than it once was. Countries like Canada, Germany, the UK, Australia, Singapore and the UAE have all created pathways to attract skilled technology workers, some of them faster and more predictable than the US system. Meanwhile, India’s own tech ecosystem has matured, with global capability centres, startups and product companies offering Indian IT jobs at levels of pay and responsibility that were hard to find a decade ago.
For some, moving elsewhere may offer a clearer path to settlement. For others, returning home may now look more attractive than waiting indefinitely. Neither choice is a failure. It is simply a recognition that long waits and shifting rules make it sensible to keep options open.
What Happens Next
The biggest unknown remains the reason for the suspension and how long it will last. Until authorities say more, speculation will fill the gap. It is possible the matter will be resolved quickly, and it is equally possible it will drag on. Anyone claiming certainty at this stage is guessing.
What can be said is that the episode highlights how dependent skilled workers are on decisions they cannot control. A company’s compliance issue can reshape the plans of employees who did nothing wrong.
The Bottom Line
The freeze on Cognizant and Cloudera is more than a bureaucratic headline. It touches people’s homes, families and futures. With Indian IT jobs in the US already under pressure and H-1B numbers falling sharply, the news adds another layer of uncertainty to an already difficult journey.
For now, the best response is patience, good advice and a willingness to consider all options. The American dream remains real for many, but increasingly, it is one of several paths rather than the only one.
