TThe Labor Department just suspended green card sponsorship filings by Cognizant, the India-based IT giant, according to the agency's inspector general on Tuesday.
"@Cognizant's PERM filings are suspended. @DOLOIG is on the hunt," Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito wrote Monday on X. "Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated."
@Sonderling47 and I are for real.
@Cognizant’s PERM filings are suspended. @DOLOIG is on the hunt.
Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated.
Alongside @WHFraudTF, we’re following facts, fraud and finances.
Handcuffs await.
D'Esposito credited Deputy Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and the White House Fraud Task Force, saying investigators are "following facts, fraud and finances." He closed the post: "Handcuffs await."
In a follow-up post about an hour later, D'Esposito announced the same action against Cloudera, the California-based data software firm.
PERM is a labor certification process companies must clear before sponsoring a foreign worker for a green card. It requires companies to test the U.S. labor market and show no qualified American worker is available for the job.
Cognizant has been in the government's sights since July. The Labor Department opened a nationwide H-1B and PERM fraud probe that month and sent subpoenas to several IT outsourcing firms. Cognizant was one of them.
The company is among the biggest H-1B sponsors in the country. A federal jury has already found it discriminated against non-Indian workers, siding with employees who said Cognizant favored Indian nationals when handing out jobs and assignments.
The Labor and Justice departments announced enforcement actions against that company in May, alleging it used a sham recruiting email address to avoid receiving applications from U.S. workers.
Neither company has publicly responded to the inspector general's posts. The Labor Department has not yet issued a formal press release on the Cognizant suspension.
This story will be updated.
