PERM is the process US employers use when they want to sponsor a foreign worker for a green card through employment. In practical terms, it is one of the main pathways that allows some H-1B workers, to move from temporary status to permanent residence in the United States. On October 8, 2026 Vice President JD Vance announced that Microsoft, along with Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, Capgemini, HCL Technologies, and Tata Consultancy Services would be suspended from using the PERM process, a step that could prevent the tech leaders from sponsoring certain H-1B workers for permanent residency in the US.
Officials said the suspension would “last as long as it needs to.”
USCIS Accepts Re-filing of Rejected I-140 Petitions with E-certification or Electronically Reproduced Signatures
On March 20, 2020, US Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) announced it would accept electronically reproduced signatures in benefit requests during the coronavirus (COVID-19) national emergency. Additionally, on March 24, 2020, the Department of Labor (DOL) Office of Foreign Labor Certification (OFLC) announced that ETA Forms 9089, Application for Permanent Employment Certification (ETA 9089), will be issued electronically to employers and their authorized attorneys or agents. After these announcements, USCIS notes that the agency “inadvertently rejected some Forms I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers, that included these e-certified ETA-9089s or blue ETA-9089s with electronically reproduced signatures.”
USCIS is requesting that affected petitioners re-submit their Form I-140 with the blue ETA Form 9089s or e-certified ETA-9089s with “either wet original signatures and/or scanned copies of the original signatures as well as a copy of the rejection notice.” If the petitioner’s inadvertently rejected ETA-9089 expired between March 20 and May 18, 2020, USCIS notes the agency will accept the re-filed Form I-140 petition along with the inadvertently rejected, expired ETA-9089 for the duration of the national emergency.
5 of the Most Important Federal Agencies Involved with US Immigration
We have previously written about the abundance of acronyms that are used by US immigration attorneys. At our office, some of those acronyms we use most frequently include: USCIS, CBP, DHS, DOS, and DOL, all of which happen to be five of the most important federal agencies involved in US immigration. (Immigration & Customs Enforcement—i.e., ICE—also has a large impact on some US immigrants, but our firm does not often work with this agency.) In this post, we provide a brief introduction to five of the federal agencies we work with most often, explain their areas of oversight, and how they are related.
Read moreEmployment-Based Green Card Options: An Overview
There are a variety of ways to become a lawful permanent resident through employment in the United States. The five main employment-based Green Card categories are: EB-1 (for foreign nationals with extraordinary ability, outstanding professors/researchers, or multinational executives/managers); EB-2 (for foreign nationals holding an advanced degree or its equivalent, or foreign nationals with exceptional ability); EB-3 (for skilled workers, professionals, or other workers—as defined within the immigration regulations); EB-4 (for special immigrants—as defined within the immigration regulations); and EB-5 (for immigrant investors). Under each category, there are several ways to pursue a Green Card.
Read moreAn Introduction to the Wonderful World of PERM
Whenever employers wish to hire foreign nationals for a permanent position in their company, they have to go through the process of sponsoring the foreign national for a Green Card. In any conversation about this process, the word “PERM” may come up, in the context of the employer-sponsored labor certification. (There are other routes to the Green Card but this post will focus only on the PERM.) PERM stands for Program Electronic Review Management (sorry to all of you who had images of the iconic 1980s hairstyle in your head) and refers to the review of the labor market testing the employer must conduct in order to obtain a certification from the US Department of Labor (DOL) that no US workers exist to fill the job offered to the foreign national.
Read moreLeaving Las Vegas: Highlights of the AILA Annual Conference June 2016
Despite the oft-repeated phrase, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” I am bravely willing to throw caution to the wind and re-cap this year’s American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) annual conference that ran from June 23rd through the 25th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both Protima and I attended three days of meetings held at the Cosmopolitan Hotel on the Vegas strip where thousands of lawyers swarmed a hotel typically filled with gamblers and partygoers. We did our best to fit in.
Read moreFrom Visitor to Green Card: The Life of a Legal Immigrant
In media coverage of immigration reform, one of the common complaints of anti-immigrant groups is that “illegal immigrants” should have followed the current immigration law to come to the United States.
As someone who advocates every day for people struggling to live and work here, I often wonder if most people realize just how long, arduous, and seemingly arbitrary the path to a Green Card (or even a non-immigrant temporary visa) can be for those who follow the rules. As an example, let's take a look at "Maya"—a fictional character not based on any particular individual, but a representative example of the journey many foreign nationals take.
As many foreign nationals do, Maya first comes to the US as a visitor with her parents as a young girl to visit family friends who moved to the US. After she spends two weeks on the beaches of Florida and goes to Disney World, she thinks that the US is an amazing place.
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