The United States Labor Department's inspector general has warned that more colleges and companies will be suspended from the H-1B visa and PERM labour-certification programmes, as a nationwide investigation into alleged fraud in the two systems widens. Anthony D'Esposito delivered the warning in a video message, saying his office would keep investigating "as aggressive as we possibly can" — but he named no new institution and gave no timetable for the next suspensions.

Source: US News Pulse

"Some more colleges, some more companies" will be suspended, D'Esposito said, adding that his office would hold accountable anyone found to have abused the programmes. The warning is the latest step in an enforcement campaign that has already frozen green-card labour certifications at eight major employers — including Microsoft, Adobe and the Indian IT giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies — and it lands directly on the hiring pipeline that brings large numbers of Indian and other foreign professionals to the United States.

The two programmes sit at the centre of skilled immigration to the United States. The H-1B visa allows employers to hire foreign workers for specialty occupations that require at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalent. PERM is the permanent labour-certification step an employer must complete before sponsoring a worker for an employment-based green card. Losing access to either programme can freeze a company's foreign hiring and stall green-card cases that workers have waited years to advance.

The investigation behind the warning

The Labor Department's Office of Inspector General opened a nationwide investigation on July 8, 2026, into alleged fraud and human trafficking in the H-1B and PERM systems, according to a legal alert by the law firm Mayer Brown tracking the enforcement wave. Investigators are examining claims that employers and labour brokers filed fraudulent applications, exploited foreign workers through wage-kickback schemes and used below-wage labour to undercut American workers. Those claims remain allegations: Mayer Brown noted that no criminal charges had been filed in the probe as of its September alert, and D'Esposito has said his office issued "dozens" of subpoenas to employers suspected of visa fraud.

Source: Mayer Brown

The inspector general's office is working with the White House Fraud Task Force led by Vice President JD Vance, which coordinates fraud investigations across federal agencies. The first concrete enforcement step came on September 8, when D'Esposito announced that the department had suspended new PERM filings for two technology employers, Cognizant and Cloudera, under a regulation — 20 CFR 656.31 — that allows PERM applications to be held until an investigation is complete. On October 8, Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling widened the suspension to eight companies, and it was extended to cover pending PERM applications as well as new ones.

Source: I-9 Intelligence

The public fight over Microsoft

The campaign turned openly public this week. After a Microsoft outage disrupted Outlook and other services on November 12, D'Esposito wrote on X: "Outlook is back. Microsoft can process 6,000 H-1B applications, but processing your inbox is apparently a tougher assignment." VisaVerge reported the post on November 13 and noted it was a public criticism, not a change to any worker's immigration status. At the October suspension announcement, Vice President Vance had accused Microsoft of using visa and green-card programmes to replace American workers, citing 6,000 American workers laid off, 6,300 H-1B visas obtained and almost 3,000 green cards — figures Microsoft disputes.

Source: VisaVerge

Microsoft says about 80 percent of its roughly 6,000 H-1B applications in the last fiscal year sought extensions or changes of status for people already employed there, rather than new hires, and that the remaining applications for new employees covered people already legally in the United States. USCIS data show Microsoft received 6,258 H-1B approvals in fiscal 2025, a total that can include renewals for existing visa holders. Microsoft President Brad Smith called the administration's replacement claim "off base." Awaaz Punjab is reporting both sides' figures as attributed claims; neither side's characterisation has been independently established.

What a PERM suspension does — and does not do

A PERM suspension prevents the affected employer from filing new labour certifications or moving pending cases forward, but it does not cancel anyone's current H-1B status or job, and previously certified PERMs and approved I-140 immigrant petitions are not automatically revoked. A worker may also pursue a regular H-1B transfer to an employer outside the suspended group. The sharpest pressure falls on employees approaching the six-year H-1B limit, because some extensions beyond that limit depend on the timing of a labour-certification filing or immigrant petition — a filing their employer may now be unable to make. The Labor Department has given no end date for the suspensions.

For colleges, the stakes in D'Esposito's warning are direct: universities use H-1B visas to hire foreign researchers, lecturers and specialists, and PERM certifications to sponsor them for residence. The wider campaign has already reached campuses — on October 9, at a White House Fraud Task Force event, D'Esposito announced that subpoenas had been served on nine universities — Harvard, MIT, Yale, Stanford, Brown, the University of Pittsburgh, UC Davis, Caltech and Arizona State — over alleged misuse of J-1 exchange-visitor classifications in federally funded research, according to reporting by The Videshi. Those subpoenas are investigative steps, not findings of wrongdoing against any university.

For the Punjabi and wider Indian diaspora in the United States, the warning matters on two levels. Four of the eight employers already suspended — Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies — are among the largest sponsors of Indian technology professionals in the US, and Cognizant and Capgemini also employ large Indian workforces. A wider suspension list would therefore reach deep into the community's professional base, while students hoping to move from US campuses into H-1B jobs face a hiring pipeline that is narrowing at both ends: the administration has separately put a $100,000 payment on many new H-1B petitions filed from outside the United States.

What happens next

D'Esposito gave no list and no timeline, which means the next suspensions will likely be announced only when they take effect, as the September and October actions were. Employers that rely on the two programmes are expected to audit their own filings now, and workers at the eight suspended companies — and at any institution that fears it could be next — are watching Labor Department updates for the end date that has not been provided. The fraud allegations at the centre of the investigation remain allegations until charges are filed or findings are published; no company suspended from PERM has been accused of a crime in the announcements reviewed for this report.