US PERM Suspension: What Indian IT Students Need to Know

US PERM suspension Indian IT students is the news that reached many campus WhatsApp groups this weekend. The United States paused a programme that companies use to help foreign workers get permanent residence. Indian IT companies like Infosys said the pause will not change their business much right now. Here is what Class 12 and college students should understand in plain words.

What is PERM? Start with the basics

PERM means Permanent Labor Certification. It is a formality US employers complete before they can sponsor a worker for a green card. A green card is the card that lets a person live and work in the United States permanently. It is different from the H-1B visa. H-1B is a temporary work visa that usually lasts three years and can be extended. Many Indian engineers go to the US on H-1B after campus placements or after a couple of years of experience in India.

Once in the US, some employees ask their company to start the green-card process. The company files a PERM application with the US Department of Labor. If approved, the employee can later apply for the actual green card. The process takes years because of backlogs, especially for Indians.

Indian IT service companies (Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Cognizant) have used this route for some of their US-based staff. However, the numbers have already fallen sharply. Data from the last year shows these Indian IT firms together accounted for less than 2 percent of all PERM applications filed in the United States. Companies have hired more local US workers and reduced dependence on this path.

What the US government did

On Thursday the US government suspended the ability of several large technology and IT companies to file new PERM applications or to have pending ones processed. The list includes Infosys, TCS, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant, Microsoft, Adobe and Capgemini. Officials said the move is part of a broader effort to protect American jobs. They allege that some companies used the system in ways that favoured lower-cost foreign workers.

Infosys filed a statement with the Indian stock exchanges on Saturday. The company said it does not expect a material impact on its operations or revenue. Material means significant or big. Other Indian IT firms have made similar comments. Analysts from brokerages noted that the short-term effect on company profits is limited because the volume of PERM filings had already dropped. The larger concern is for individual employees who were waiting in the green-card queue. Their cases may now stall.

Who this page is for and who can skip it

• Useful if you are a Class 12 science or commerce student, or a first- or second-year engineering student, who is thinking about IT placements and has a long-term US plan in mind.
• Useful if you have seniors or relatives already in the US on H-1B who are talking about green cards.
• Skip if your focus is only government jobs, pure science research in India, or non-IT roles. Campus placement numbers for Indian offices are not directly changed by this US rule.

What students can do this week

Do not treat this as a reason to change your branch or drop coding practice. Indian IT companies continue to hire freshers for roles in India. The next placement season will still depend on your projects, coding skills, and interview performance.

• Check official company career pages and the internship listings on Campus Reality for current openings. Do not pay any third-party agent who claims to guarantee a US job or green card.
• Build proof of work: one solid project, GitHub activity, or open-source contribution. These matter more than a distant visa path.
• Read the primary source. Search the US Department of Labor website for the PERM suspension notice. The official text wins over social-media summaries.
• Talk to alumni who went on H-1B. Many will tell you that switching companies inside India or gaining domain skills is a more reliable career step right now.
• Keep an eye on related visa rules. Earlier pages on Campus Reality cover H-1B fee changes and other mobility updates that affect the same student cohort.

For more context on student mobility and official notices, see the internships board at campusreality.in/internships.

The official US Department of Labor site is the authoritative place for the rule: dol.gov.

Numbers and company statements above come from public exchange filings and news reports dated 9–10 October 2026. If a new official notice appears, that notice replaces this summary. No one can guarantee a placement, a visa, or a green card.