The main message this week is that the pressure on H-1B and green-card sponsorship is shifting from "proposed rules" to actual enforcement against specific employers. Here’s what that means for you right now.
Monday: The H-1B Registration Numbers Got Misread
A Congressional Research Service (“CRS”) report (published October 14) released percentages on what we all suspected: FY2027 H-1B registrations dropped drastically in the most recent cap season. This was especially true for some major H-1B employers. Cognizant went from 3,752 registrations to zero, a 100% drop. Infosys fell from 8,886 to 759, down 91%. Tata's registrations fell 95%.
As can be expected, Indian press picked this up and ran with it, but there are some details we need to be sure we’re clear on: a registration isn't a job, and it isn't a status. If you're already in H-1B status working for one of these companies, this report has absolutely no impact on you. The CRS data describes new registrations for the FY2027 cap lottery, not existing visa holders. The people this actually affects are folks on OTHER statuses (OPT, a different visa category) hoping to move onto H-1B through one of these employers, where the odds of that specific company sponsoring seem to be… well… nonexistent right now. I wrote a more detailed breakdown of this earlier this week. You can read it here.
Tuesday: PERM Enforcement Made Heads Spin
Tuesday was a big one. First, two real settlements were made public: Cloudera agreed to a 2-year PERM debarment plus penalties over a recruiting email address that reportedly didn't even work, and Instacart settled for up to $5 million over running its PERM-required recruitment entirely on paper while doing its actual hiring online. These are closed enforcement cases against named companies, and the DOL/DOJ wave behind them traces back to settlements first reported October 21.
Second, the long-rumored PERM labor certification overhaul (the biggest proposed rewrite of the process since 2004) cleared OIRA/OMB review this week, clearing the last procedural step before it can actually be published for public comment. No draft text is public yet, so there's nothing substantive to really react to yet, but it is coming soon.
When taken together, the message to employers is that recruitment-on-paper and non-functional contact info are likely no longer safe assumptions, and a rewritten PERM process is close enough to see from here.
How Bad Is the PERM Backlog, Actually?
Another thing that is weighing on many people in the backlog is how long the PERM process has gotten over the past few years. As of the Department of Labor’s October 5 update (flag.dol.gov), PERM determinations completed in August 2026 took an average of 336 calendar days just for the initial analyst-review stage. Now, this is after the PERM application itself is filed. This does not include the months long process you must go through before the PERM can even be submitted to the Department of Labor - prevailing wage and recruitment processes can take between 6- 10 months right now, so we’re looking at close to 2 years for the PERM certification, if there is not an audit. If your PERM happens to get pulled for audit, you can tack on several more months on top of everything else. For scale, DOL’s own statistics show 147,884 PERM applications were still sitting in the queue as of the end of March 2026.
One of the most frustrating factors here is that none of this is new. It’s just month after month and year after year of filing volume has outpacing review capacity, so the backlog keeps compounding on itself. So, if your PERM feels like it’s been pending forever and ever, it’s because it probably has.
TLDR
The real story this week is that PERM enforcement is at the forefront and is likely to be more regularly in the headlines now. The enforcement seems to be requiring modernization before the modernization proposal is even released for comment.
Two companies (Cloudera, Instacart) got actual PERM debarment/penalties for recruitment shortcuts.
A full PERM modernization proposal cleared its last internal review step and could surface for public comment soon.
The H-1B cap lottery registration-drop numbers are drastive, but they don't change anyone's current status; they only matter if you're hoping to move TO H-1B through one of those specific employers.
The PERM backlog is the slow-moving barrier to moving further in the green card process that many are dealing with right now, and it is unlikely that anything will alleviate that backlong effectively anytime too soon.
Three deadlines still on the calendar: the OPT fee comment period closes Monday, November 9; the grace-period comment period closes Tuesday, November 10; and the deference-proposal comment period closes Friday, November 13. Please be sure to take the time to comment. You may feel that these comments do not matter, but remember that the the ruling that blocked the change to D/S for students referenced the 22,000 comments and how they were not acknowledged or considered. Your voice matters.
This post is for general information only and is not legal advice. For guidance on your specific situation, please consult a licensed immigration attorney.
