Washington, Aug 2026 : A Republican US senator has called for stricter recruitment requirements for employers sponsoring foreign workers for permanent residency, a proposal that could have significant implications for Indian technology professionals who rely on employer-sponsored green cards after entering the United States through student and temporary work visa programmes.
Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri has urged Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling to overhaul the Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) process, which employers generally use as the first stage in sponsoring foreign workers for employment-based permanent residency.
The proposal comes at a time when Indian nationals continue to account for a dominant share of the US H-1B programme. According to the latest US Citizenship and Immigration Services data, Indians accounted for about 70 per cent of all approved H-1B petitions in fiscal year 2025. Many Indian technology professionals follow a career pathway that begins with student visas and Optional Practical Training (OPT), followed by H-1B employment and eventually employer-sponsored permanent residency.
Schmitt’s letter does not specifically refer to India and does not itself change existing H-1B or permanent residency regulations. Instead, it asks the Department of Labor to consider rewriting PERM regulations and provide additional information concerning audits, suspected fraud and the previous use of OPT and H-1B visas by PERM applicants.
“Abuse of the PERM and H-1B programs allow corporations to replace American workers with cheaper foreign labor,” Schmitt wrote. He called on the department to address what he described as abuse of the programmes and ensure that American workers remain the primary focus of employment protections.
Under the PERM system, employers seek labour certification before permanently hiring certain foreign workers. The Department of Labor must determine that there are not sufficient qualified and available US workers for the position and that employing the foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed American workers.
Schmitt argued that the existing regulations have not undergone substantial changes in more than two decades and no longer adequately reflect the modern US labour market.
Under current recruitment requirements, employers sponsoring workers for non-professional positions generally have to advertise openings in two print newspapers and place a notice with a state workforce agency. For professional positions, employers are not necessarily required to advertise vacancies online in the same manner.
Schmitt said the continued reliance on traditional recruitment methods was outdated given the dramatic decline in newspaper circulation and the widespread use of online job applications.
“Given dramatically reduced newspaper circulation and the prevalence of online job applications, these outdated rules let employers conceal jobs from American workers while claiming they tried to recruit domestically,” he wrote.
The senator has proposed requiring employers to publish every PERM position on their regular company careers website and at least one widely used online employment platform. Companies would also have to use the same application and evaluation procedures for PERM positions as they use for comparable jobs that are not part of the foreign-worker sponsorship process.
The proposed changes would also require employers to maintain detailed records of every American applicant, explain why individual candidates were rejected and certify that positions had not been formally or informally reserved for foreign workers.
Employers would additionally be required to notify recently laid-off American workers who might meet the qualifications for available positions, interview eligible candidates and provide written explanations for rejecting them.
“The current requirement permits cursory, pro forma consideration of American applicants,” Schmitt wrote, arguing that the recruitment process should instead provide displaced US workers with a genuine opportunity to compete.
For Indian technology professionals, the proposals could increase the documentation and compliance burden on employers during the green-card sponsorship process. They could also potentially lengthen an already complex immigration pathway if the requirements are adopted.
However, the impact remains uncertain because Schmitt’s letter is a request for regulatory changes rather than an immediate alteration of immigration law. Any eventual effect would depend on whether the Department of Labor adopts the proposals and the precise language of regulations that may follow.
PERM is also distinct from the H-1B programme. H-1B visas allow temporary employment in specialised occupations, while PERM is commonly used as part of the process through which eligible foreign workers seek employment-based permanent residency.
Schmitt’s proposal does not call for the immediate cancellation of existing visas, applications or immigration status. Instead, it seeks to change how employers demonstrate that they have made genuine efforts to recruit qualified American workers before sponsoring foreign employees for permanent residency.
(The content of this article is sourced from a news agency and has not been edited by the Mavericknews30 team.)
