No, digital is not always best



In today’s digital world, it’s easy to think that everyone loves everything digital. After all, many businesses conspicuously post a “No Cash Accepted” sign in their windows, and it’s getting increasingly harder to remember the days when no one needed a charged cell phone to get into a concert or board an airplane.

But don’t let this electronic ubiquity fool you. Lots of people still prefer paper bills, statement printouts, physical mail, and other such hard copies.

The proposed rule plays right into the hands of scammers and identity thieves.

Let’s dig in a little on this.

The U.S. Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission are each proposing a rule, “Regulation E-Delivery,” that would switch from paper to digital the default way that Americans receive certain critical communications. In other words, this new rule would mean that Americans would automatically receive communications electronically and would affirmatively have to ask to revert to paper delivery.

Let’s look at each one of these entities separately.

The DOL’s proposed rule would automatically move Americans to electronic delivery of their health plan documents, unless they actively work directly with their insurers to revert to paper delivery. This move would risk vulnerable Americans having more difficult access to — or missing altogether — critical health insurance information if they miss a notice or can't reliably access the internet.

Americans should have the right to choose how they receive critical health plan documents, like HIPAA and COBRA notices, benefits summaries, and other important disclosures. Regulation E-Delivery would flip the choice from automatic-paper to automatic-digital, resulting in major hurdles for specific populations, particularly seniors, rural residents without reliable internet, and low-income households.

The proposal would automatically move people to Regulation E-Delivery, unless they actively work with each insurer to restore paper delivery. This is the opposite of how the system should work. People should not default because they miss a notice or because — like most people — they have trouble navigating large corporate bureaucracy.

The people most comfortable with Regulation E-Delivery are the most tech-literate folks and can much more easily opt-in under the current system. Those who depend on paper often lack that same digital literacy. This effort seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist.

Right now, people who want electronic delivery can easily choose it, and those who want paper can keep getting it without having to do anything. There's no reason to flip that on its head.

Some people argue that this proposal is a cost-saving measure, but is that really believable?

Health insurance companies have a history of pocketing savings and not passing them along to their customers. Also, has anyone done a serious analysis of the costs to consumers for missed notices or out-of-date information? This proposal leans heavily on cutting corporate paper, printing, and postage costs, without seriously weighing what that means for the people on the receiving end.

RELATED: Silicon Valley is building a god in its own image

Gremlin/Getty Images

The SEC's proposed Regulation E-Delivery would make electronic delivery the default for sensitive financial documents, reversing today's arrangement where those documents arrive on paper, unless for them electronically.

The Regulation E-Delivery hurdles would be much more complicated than a simple “opt-out” checkbox. Investors could be required to contact each financial firm separately — through multiple websites, portals, or telephone systems — to preserve or restore paper delivery across their accounts.

This mandate disadvantages folks who either are not as savvy with digital communications or who have unreliable internet/cell service. These people would be the least likely to successfully navigate the many barriers that this new rule would require to preserve paper communication.

The proposed rule plays right into the hands of scammers and identity thieves by requiring the same basic “click the link” actions that investors have been conditioned to avoid.

Some people simply prefer physical copies of certain things. Perhaps you’re the type of person who prefers a physical book — not an e-reader — to read on the beach. Or perhaps you’d rather have a printed, rather than a texted, receipt from a restaurant. Similarly, many Americans still prefer important health care and financial documents in paper form, as they can be easier to read, file, and refer to.

It also is questionable whether a paper option would even remain that long if Regulation E-Delivery goes into effect. Millions of Americans have learned the hard way that the federal government’s promise of consumer choice is not always worth the paper it’s printed on.

Remember when President Obama promised Americans that they could keep their doctors under Obamacare? Forgive us if we take the Regulation E-Delivery promise of enduring choice between paper and electronic delivery with a similar dose of skepticism.

The DOL and the SEC should reject this proposed rule and keep the current system, where Americans can keep what they have now or choose for themselves whether they want to switch to digital.

H-1B visa sponsors put on ice by Labor Department after Sara Gonzales' investigative reporting



BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales’ war on H-1B abuse is bearing fruit: Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito just clamped down on two major visa sponsors.

D’Esposito suspended Cognizant and Cloudera’s Program Electronic Review Management pipelines and H-1B applications on Tuesday. He sat down with Gonzales to break down the Trump administration’s progress on the foreign labor issue.

‘Handcuffs await.’

PERM is a regulatory hurdle employers must clear before they are allowed to sponsor employees’ green cards.

“It’s a bad time to be a fraudster right now, in the Trump 2.0 America,” Gonzales said at the top of the show. “It’s actually a bad time to be any sort of abuser of our immigration system right now, because the Trump administration is doing so many things to crack down on all kinds of fraud, from H-1B fraud to discriminating against American workers.”

Tuesday's action didn't come together overnight, D'Esposito told Gonzales.

D’Esposito spearheaded a nationwide probe in July alongside acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling and the White House Fraud Task Force. Investigators manned tip lines, executed search warrants, and interviewed both victims and suspects to secure Tuesday’s DOL action against Cognizant and Cloudera.

"Threats to American workers will NOT be tolerated," Gonzales said, reading D'Esposito's X post that announced the action. "Alongside @WHFraudTF, we’re following facts, fraud and finances. Handcuffs await."

Cognizant is a massive U.S.-Indian information technology firm. It’s one of the U.S.’ largest H-1B sponsors, with 3,510 applications approved in fiscal year 2026 and over 11,000 labor condition applications filed in fiscal year 2025. LCAs are part of the U.S. work visa approval process.

Cognizant recently announced it would hire just 1,500 U.S. college graduates in 2026, compared with its thousands of H-1B and LCA filings over the same period.

A 2024 federal jury found that Cognizant discriminated against non-Indians in hiring, and a Manhattan jury later awarded $8.4 million to a former executive who claimed he was fired after complaining about “race and national origin discrimination.”

In response to the 2024 verdict, a Cognizant spokesperson told Bloomberg: "We provide equal employment opportunities for all employees and have built a diverse and inclusive workplace that promotes a culture of belonging in which all employees feel valued, are engaged, and have the opportunity to develop and succeed."

The Manhattan jury did not find that Cognizant discriminated on the basis of race or national origin, only that the company retaliated against the employee for complaining.

Cognizant and Cloudera did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

RELATED: DOL takes action after Sara Gonzales' latest expose of alleged H-1B fraud: 'Walls are closing in Mohammad'

Sara Gonzales

Gonzales dove into Cognizant’s troubles in Texas.

“For viewers who are not familiar, Cognizant has a huge track record — massive importer of foreign workers here in Texas,” Gonzales said. “And just in Texas in 2025, there were 41,571 beneficiaries approved for H-1B visas. That was across 6,137 companies. One state. That's what I'm saying. Just in Texas.”

She noted that Cognizant received the most H-1B approvals in Texas and highlighted the 2024 discrimination verdict against the company.

"They've ... been up to no good for a very long time now. From 2024: They were found liable for intentional discrimination against a class of terminated non-Indian and non-South Asian Americans," Gonzales claimed.

"They've got a long track record of discriminating against American workers."

D’Esposito responded that the freeze was just the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s campaign against anti-American labor discrimination.

“It’s just the beginning. For everyone listening at home, this isn’t the end,” D’Esposito said. “I’ve already seen probably a thousand tweets today on my X post saying: 'Who else?' 'Why not this one?' Give us a minute, all right? It’s two of the biggest companies in the world that were suspended today, and we’re gonna keep at it.”

Gonzales is no stranger to H-1B investigations. She previously tracked down alleged ghost offices and suspected fraudulently registered companies with Texas Senate candidate and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).

Paxton later issued civil investigative demands to nearly 30 North Texas businesses as a result of her reporting. Paxton thanked Gonzales by name.

Gonzales and D'Esposito teamed up to track down another alleged fraudster in August, tracing green-card-scam accusations to apparently empty offices in Dallas.

"The fact is that these foreign labor visas, especially when they're abused and extorted, are taking good-paying, fair wages away from the American people," D'Esposito told Gonzales. "That's why acting Secretary Sonderling and I, under President Trump's leadership, have made this a priority."

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CASH FOR H-1B VISAS — I Confronted the Man Behind the Scheme | 8/17/26
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CASH FOR H-1B VISAS — I Confronted the Man Behind the Scheme | 8/17/26

DOL takes action after Sara Gonzales' latest exposé of alleged H-1B fraud: 'Walls are closing in, Mohammad'



BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales has been on a tear in Texas, exposing alleged H-1B visa program fraud and collecting scalps along the way.

After flagging numerous potential fraudulent operations, prompting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) to take legal action, Gonzales teamed up with U.S. Department of Labor Inspector General Anthony D’Esposito.

'This was a total scam.'

Together, they paid a visit to Mohammad Abbas, a Dallas resident suspected of scamming foreigners with the promise of H-1B visa sponsorship and/or green cards.

"This right here is everything that's wrong with H-1Bs," Labor Department Inspector General D’Esposito told Gonzales outside the office door of Abbas' Molabs Media.

"This is why fraud is taking away American jobs from American workers."

D'Esposito implored individuals involved or victimized by the alleged scheme to get in touch with the Labor Department, noting that "whistleblowers are protected."

Abbas clearly did not appreciate all the attention.

When Gonzales showed up at Abbas' office with D'Esposito and a folder brimming with damning evidence earlier this month, the alleged fraudster's door was covered and went unanswered.

"Mohammad, you can run but you can't hide," said Gonzales, "because all of the information that we have was quite literally handed over to the inspector general of the Department of Labor. I'm sure the investigators over there are going to have a field day with this."

"The walls are closing in, Mohammad. Tick-tock," added the BlazeTV host.

RELATED: A new threat on American streets: Inside the rise of Indian gangs

The DOL’s Office of Inspector General is undertaking a massive crackdown on H-1B visa program abuse.

A spokesperson for the Department of Labor told Blaze News, “The Department of Labor OIG’s H-1B fraud investigation is active, expanding, and aggressive. We have issued subpoenas, executed search warrants, and are following the evidence wherever it leads.”

“We are ramping up resources and coordinating closely with acting Secretary [Keith] Sonderling and the White House Fraud Task Force to identify, expose, and dismantle fraudulent employers, brokers, and networks that exploit the H-1B system and steal American jobs,” continued the spokesperson. “Deportation authority belongs to DHS, not DOL. Our job is to build the cases. When we uncover fraud, we work with our federal partners to pursue every appropriate criminal, civil, and immigration consequence.”

Thanks to Gonzales’ investigation, the DOL has the scent of a potential fraud scheme in Dallas.

Gonzales and her team received multiple complaints about Abbas from separate purported victims claiming to have shelled out small fortunes in hopes of securing legal status to live and work in the United States.

"These people were charged thousands of dollars for this," said Gonzales. "One of the victims even said he paid $60,000, but the sponsorship never came through."

While stiffing desperate people is bad enough, Gonzales emphasized that it is "illegal to take payment from people to sponsor them for visas."

Not only is it unlawful for a would-be employee to pay outright for a sponsorship, as D’Esposito told Gonzales, it is illegal for the employer to offset H-1B costs by lowering the prospective employee's salary or demanding reimbursement.

Gonzales noted that Abbas owns multiple companies — including Molabs Media, which has lost the right to transact business in the Lone Star State, and HiTech Network Solutions — which appear to cite the same Dallas corporate suite as their headquarters.

According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' H-1B Employer Data Hub, these organizations sponsored H-1B visas in recent years. The organizations, which appear to have recently scrubbed their team webpages, also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in PPP loans that were later forgiven, according to ProPublica’s “Tracking PPP” database.

After trying unsuccessfully multiple times early in her investigation to reach Abbas at his home or office, Gonzales finally got ahold of him by phone and asked him about the alleged scheme.

Abbas — who allegedly runs some funds through a bank account in Pakistan and who, according to his LinkedIn, was educated in Bangladesh — denied that he was selling green cards and visas, claiming instead that he sells "Indian concerts."

This claim doesn't appear to hold water.

Gonzales identified a woman named Rachel Samuel — who purports on LinkedIn to be the business development manager for Abbas' Molabs Media LLC and has in recent years sought potential H-1B candidates for various roles — as the apparent recruiter and point of contact for individuals allegedly trying to buy green cards or visas from Abbas.

In one alleged text exchange between one of Abbas' alleged victims and Samuel, who launched her own visa-sponsoring tech company whose right to do business in Texas has been terminated, Samuel appears to state, "Basically we can do 5 payments Once a month without getting flagged," adding, "Anything over 30K will be flagged by IRS."

One of the purported victims alleged to Gonzales that he touched base with Abbas' crew, discussed different payment options, and finally agreed to pay an initial sum of $2,500 for his sponsorship, which he claims to have deposited into Abbas' local bank account.

After hearing nothing back from Abbas' outfit, the victim alleged that they notified him that they had put his name in the H-1B lottery — even though he allegedly paid on the understanding that they would endorse him under a different visa program — and were now expecting him to pay another $4,000 to close the deal.

"I mean, this was a total scam," said the victim.

Blaze News reached out to Mohammad Abbas and Rachel Samuel's attorney for comment but did not receive a response.

Gonzales told Blaze News, “Let this serve as a warning to all the people committing H-1B fraud. I'm not stopping until you've all gone back home or are locked up.”

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Exclusive: Union boss Democrat's compensation was pumped while worker representation was dumped



Democrat Bob Brooks is running for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District as the common man's champion. The numbers tell a different story.

Since becoming Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association president in a 2021 special election, Brooks' total compensation increased by roughly 10%, while funding for first responders’ representational activity fell by 18%. Department of Labor filings reveal that general overhead expenses increased by 38% during Brooks’ presidency, funded by a 14% hike in membership dues.

‘Bob Brooks’ entire career has been one big cash-grab.’

Representational activities, including collective bargaining and workplace dispute resolution, are a union’s core functions. General overhead includes salaries and administrative costs.

The PPFFA did not respond to a request for comment.

Brooks was paid $45,199 in the partial fiscal year ending August 2022, according to DOL filings. That climbed to $57,917 in 2023, $61,709 in 2024, and $63,715 by August 2025. Brooks retained his nearly $77,000 salary as a firefighter for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, through early 2025.

Brooks is running against one-term incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who unseated Democrat Susie Wild to secure his seat.

“Bob fought fires in Bethlehem for 20 years to keep his community safe, and as president of his union, he has delivered higher wages and better health care for his members. His salary was set by his membership, and he had no role in that vote,” a Brooks campaign spokesperson told Blaze News. “His opponent, Ryan Mackenzie, opposes collective bargaining and doesn't understand the challenges working people face because he's never worked a job outside of politics in his entire life.”

Most of the increase in Brooks’ total compensation came from allowances and disbursements, not salary increases. The Brooks campaign did not dispute the union's Department of Labor filings.

RELATED: New Jersey's noncitizen voter blame game doesn't add up — literally

Joe Lamberti/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Union members’ monthly dues rose by 14% during that same period. In August 2022, members were expected to pay $14.30 a month. This rose to $14.94 in August 2023, rose again to $15.86 in 2024, and finally hit $16.26 in August 2025.

The PPFFA is a mid-sized statewide union representing over 6,000 members.

The dues weren’t put toward expanded collective bargaining activity or worker representation. Spending on collective bargaining and workplace advocacy under Brooks dropped 18%, from $110,174 in the fiscal year ending in August 2022 to $90,196 in 2025.

General overhead rose 38% over the same period, climbing from $81,722 to $112,397.

“Bob Brooks’ entire career has been one big cash-grab. While Bob sells himself as a champion for workers, he illegally skipped out on providing workers’ compensation coverage for his own employees and raided the pockets of the union workers he was supposed to represent,” Mackenzie campaign spokesperson Andrew Weller told Blaze News. “Bob’s campaign is just his latest con job — this time targeting the people of the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos.”

Brooks courted controversy in April when he referred to volunteer firefighters as “two hatter s**tbags” and “scabs,” the Washington Free Beacon reported. A two hatter is a unionized firefighter who volunteers in his off-duty time.

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Exclusive: Red states funneled $148 billion in corporate welfare to entities targeting conservative communities



Some Republicans have mastered the art of the bad deal, suggests a new State Leadership Initiative report exclusively given to Blaze News.

State Leadership Initiative’s new "Corporate Welfare" report suggests that corporate subsidies inadvertently fund “cultural and economic campaigns designed to destroy conservative communities.” Republican-run states have spent at least $148 billion on corporate subsidies since 2015, according to Good Jobs First.

'Red states are writing the biggest checks to their biggest enemies.'

“Many of the largest subsidy recipients actively undermine the communities and industries that subsidize them — through ESG mandates, replacement of domestic labor with H-1B workers, DEI regimes, supply-chain favoritism toward China, and open hostility,” according to the report.

Some of those subsidies are going to banks and asset management firms. These firms employ environmental, social, and governance standards that emphasize climate metrics when deciding where to invest.

“Major banks and investment firms that receive state deposits and tax incentives have implemented lending policies that strangle coal, oil, and natural gas projects,” the report states. “JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup — all recipients of various state incentives — have committed to ‘net-zero’ financing that effectively blacklists fossil fuel development.”

JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup were all previously members of the United Nations-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance. The banks quietly departed the coalition after President Donald Trump’s 2024 re-election.

“Tech companies impose ESG requirements on their supply chains that penalize manufacturers, agriculture, and energy producers in red states,” the report states. “Amazon, Google, and Microsoft — all major subsidy recipients — demand carbon accounting and ‘sustainable’ practices from suppliers that make it harder for red-state businesses to compete.”

Outlining its climate goals through 2030, Microsoft’s 2025 Environmental Sustainability Report touts that its “large-scale ... suppliers are required to transition to 100% carbon-free electricity for their delivered goods and services.”

'They use their market power to export California climate policy into states that explicitly rejected it.'

“The corporate welfare in our energy industry means taxpayers end up getting screwed twice. Federal and state dollars incentivize the financing and installation of crappy Chinese wind and solar, so corporations go out of their way to get the free money,” Power the Future Executive Director Daniel Turner told Blaze News.

“Politicians create a problem, spend your money to fix said problem, make everything worse, and then have the nerve to ask you to re-elect them. We fought a revolution over less.”

RELATED: The GOP's 2028 ticket math is already brutal

David Ryder/Getty Images

Over 57,000 Amazon positions have been affected by layoffs or restructuring since 2022, according to CNBC.

The Seattle-based giant had over 13,500 H-1B visa petitions approved in 2025.

An H-1B visa is often the first step for someone pursuing permanent residency in the United States. Once secured, an employer may begin the Program Electronic Review Management process on the employee’s behalf. If successful, the employee is granted permanent labor certification and a green card.

“[Amazon] has mastered the art of gaming the Department of Labor’s PERM process — posting job advertisements deliberately designed to exclude qualified Americans, ensuring they can claim no domestic workers are available and justify importing cheaper foreign replacements,” according to State Leadership Initiative VP and report author Thomas Murray. “Texas handed Amazon hundreds of millions in subsidies. Amazon responded by laying off thousands of Texas workers while filing for tens of thousands of H-1B visas to import cheaper foreign labor.”

“Before sponsoring a foreign worker for permanent residency, an employer must test the labor market — advertise the role, run specific recruitment steps, and certify that no qualified, willing U.S. worker was available,” Murray told Blaze News. “The gaming happens when a company designs that recruitment to be technically compliant while ensuring few or no Americans actually apply.”

In an April press release, Amazon stated that it "had more than 86,000 full- and part-time employees [in Texas] and supported more than 90,000 indirect jobs in 2025."

Apple and Meta were both previously pursued by the Department of Justice for similar alleged citizenship-status discrimination. The DOJ claimed that Apple required physical rather than electronic applications for PERM jobs to hide them from public view and keep them off its hiring websites.

In November 2023, Apple paid $25 million to settle DOJ allegations that it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination statutes. Meta paid $14.25 million in 2021 following a similar DOJ investigation.

Meta, Apple, and Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment from Blaze News.

Murray noted the distinctions between Apple and Amazon’s alleged PERM strategy.

“Public DOL disclosure data shows Amazon filing tens of thousands of PERM applications across its entities, a large share at entry-level prevailing-wage tiers that are hard to square with a ‘no qualified Americans’ claim — and using the same recruitment patterns (generic ads, mail-in-only, roles never posted to its own careers site) that DOJ has already penalized at Apple and Facebook,” Murray told Blaze News. “Amazon hasn't yet been sued over this.”

According to Good Jobs First, Amazon has received at least $18 million in tax incentives in Texas since Gov. Greg Abbott (R) took office in 2015. Most Texas tax breaks are managed at the municipal level and are not required to disclose valuations, according to the state’s Local Government Code.

State Leadership Initiative’s report calls for subsidies over $25,000 to be included in a mandatory disclosure database.

“Texas uses performance-based incentives to attract major investments and create jobs for Texans. The governor’s focus is on expanding opportunity and good-paying jobs for Texas workers and families,” Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told Blaze News. “In January, he directed all Texas state agencies and public universities to immediately freeze new H-1B visa petitions and review current usage to ensure taxpayer-funded jobs go to Texans first.”

Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

Abbott’s action follows Trump’s September 2025 "Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers" proclamation, which applied a $100,000 fee to new H-1B applications.

“It’s a fairly common practice for governments to use incentive agreements to encourage companies to create jobs in their communities that generate tax revenue and drive economic activity,” Amazon Vice President of Economic Development Holly Sullivan told Blaze News. “And if we enter into an agreement like that, we take it seriously and work hard to create every job we projected. The way these agreements are structured means that we only receive benefits from them if we do our part.”

Clauses tying benefits to performance — often referred to as "clawback" clauses — are common for incentive agreements, though typically enforced at state or local government discretion.

State Leadership Initiative recommends Republican-run states expand the scope of their clawback provisions to safeguard their independence and economies.

“We’ve invested more than $1.8 trillion in the U.S. since 2010 and employ more than one million people across the country —no U.S. company has created more jobs than Amazon in the last decade,” Sullivan said.

Penalizing energy production via lending and supply-chain restrictions would automatically nullify incentive agreements under the proposed policy from State Leadership Initiative.

Scaling H-1B visa filings or outsourcing by 10% amid layoffs of 100 or more U.S. employees would also cancel state-level agreements should the report’s recommendations be adopted.

“The current crisis in red states demands we recognize that the problem has evolved beyond what traditional economic analysis anticipated,” the report concludes. “The corporations now receiving the largest subsidies take taxpayer dollars and use them to replace American workers, destroy American industries, and assault American culture.”

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IT'S HAPPENING! Trump's H-1B Visa Crackdown Is Going Nuclear | 7/8/26
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IT'S HAPPENING! Trump's H-1B Visa Crackdown Is Going Nuclear | 7/8/26

Trump administration official alleges 'human trafficking' amid first-of-its-kind H-1B fraud investigation



After months of calls for our leaders to investigate and put an end to legal immigration abuses, the Trump administration has begun to play offense.

On Wednesday, Inspector General Anthony D'Esposito appeared on Fox Business to announce a major development in the Department of Labor's fraud investigations.

'As the Inspector General, my top priorities are exposing fraud, protecting American workers, and putting criminals in cuffs.'

The focus, according to the inspector general, is on the H-1B visa program and PERM, otherwise known as the Program Electronic Review Management system. He said these investigations "without a doubt" have yielded evidence of fraud — and "human trafficking."

In the interview, D'Esposito said the Department of Labor will take "what we believe is probably the most aggressive action against foreign labor fraud by an inspector general in this administration."

He added that the agency has "already started to issue dozens of subpoenas. We are going to make sure that we track down every lead." He mentioned that there are "whistleblowers talking about some of the biggest companies, like Cognizant, who have been ... in chatter of issues with PERM and H-1B visas."

While the investigation does not in itself indicate any form of wrongdoing, according to Department of Labor data from the second quarter of 2026, it is true that Cognizant draws heavily from the H-1B program.

RELATED: Trump DOJ charges 455 people allegedly tied to $6.5B in health care fraud

Bonnie Cash/Getty Images

In this three-month data set alone, Cognizant successfully certified approximately 3,440 H-1B visas, according to government data.

A similar review of PERM data from 2025 revealed that the top 10 companies that use this program are:

  • Microsoft Corporation;
  • FPL Food LLC;
  • Consolidated Catfish Producers LLC;
  • South Georgia Pecan Company;
  • JCG Foods of Georgia LLC;
  • Akash Management LLC;
  • Oracle America Inc.;
  • Merit Logistics;
  • Wal-Mart Associates Inc.; and
  • Salesforce Inc.

The PERM program had roughly 80,700 certified applications in 2025. However, it is important to note that this program is not itself a visa issuance program. Rather, it is a preliminary step toward approval in certain visa categories.

"My team, in conjunction with President Trump and Vice President Vance's Fraud Task Force, has worked relentlessly to uncover fraud, safeguard taxpayer dollars, and hold bad actors accountable. For far too long, fraudsters believed they could game the U.S. employment-based visa system and get away with it. They were wrong," D'Esposito said in a Tuesday press release.

"This isn't just paperwork fraud — it's the exploitation of vulnerable workers, forced labor, the displacement of American workers, and abusive human trafficking. As the Inspector General, my top priorities are exposing fraud, protecting American workers, and putting criminals in cuffs."

D'Esposito added that his team will be working closely with President Trump and Vice President Vance's Fraud Task Force "to exhaust every lead."

Blaze News reached out to Cognizant as well as the Office of the Inspector General but did not immediately receive a response.

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Most new jobs are going to women — and 1 in 3 men have given up



President Donald Trump celebrated the jobs report published on Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that American employers added jobs for the third consecutive month.

The report, which Trump called "great," says the U.S. economy added 172,000 jobs last month; the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4.3%; the number of unemployed people, 7.3 million, "changed little over the month"; and the labor force participation rate held at 61.8%.

'Bodes ill for the country.'

Total employment growth for the months of March and April were revised up by 29,000 and 64,000, respectively.

"This is a labor market that is stronger than it was last year and is looking pretty darn solid, despite high energy prices and higher inflation generally," Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC, told CNBC. "There's no indication that the labor market needs support."

While the labor market is purportedly healthy, there are a pair of potentially destabilizing trends under way behind the scenes: the overwhelming majority of new payroll jobs are going to women, and a staggering number of men have given up on finding a job.

Jason Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently highlighted that "the share of American men in the labor force has dipped to record lows." Labor Department data revealed last month that one in three men were neither working nor looking for a job.

RELATED: Steelworkers need a future, not another merger war

Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone/Getty Images

The male labor-force participation rate has declined significantly in recent years, to say nothing of the precipitous decline that has taken place over the past century. The male LFP rate was 87% in 1948, 75% in 2000, and — according to the latest jobs report — 67.2% in May.

"The premature absence of millions of able-bodied men from our workforce, combined with the continuing retirement of the Baby Boomers and significant reductions in immigration, bodes ill for the country," wrote Riley.

While there are multiple factors at play — Baby Boomers are, for instance, retiring en masse; young men are dropping off to study; there is diminished demand for non-college male labor; and prime-age men are falling to the wayside because of illness and disabilities — the Washington Post recently pointed out that:

the labor market has weakened since early 2025, with most job opportunities concentrated in areas typically dominated by women, including health care and private education. At the same time, several male-dominated industries, including manufacturing, transportation, and mining have shed jobs, leaving a mismatch between typical skill sets and job opportunities for men.

It's evidently a new day for female labor.

Whereas in the mid-1970s, women held roughly 40% of jobs in the U.S. — not including agricultural work or self-employment — they now hold the majority of jobs in the country.

NPR's "Morning Edition" reported that of the roughly 369,000 jobs created between the beginning of Trump's second term and April, 348,000 jobs went to women and 21,000 jobs went to men. In other words, 94% of the jobs went to women and only 6% to men.

Courtney Parella, a spokeswoman for the Labor Department, stressed to "Morning Edition" that raw job counts provided a "misleading snapshot" of the labor market, adding that "both men and women are benefiting from a strong economy."

Women have picked up the supermajority of net new payroll jobs in part because of the growth in female-dominated sectors, namely health care — where women hold roughly 80% of the jobs — and social assistance.

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Feds allege this Big Tech company violated federal law with bizarre scheme to avoid hiring US citizens



An American tech company is being sued by the Department of Justice for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers.

Instead of hiring Americans, the company allegedly favored hiring workers with temporary visas, going to bizarre lengths to prevent U.S. workers from being able to properly apply for its vacant jobs.

'Employers cannot use the PERM sponsorship process as a back door for discriminating against US workers.'

Cloudera is a software company based in Santa Clara, California, that predominantly stores data and was started in 2008 by former engineers from Google, Yahoo, and Facebook.

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the DOJ said the company violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by intentionally discriminating against Americans.

The federal lawsuit said the company "upended its normal hiring process and did exactly what the law prohibits. ... Cloudera did not consider the applications some U.S. worker candidates submitted because the company earmarked certain jobs for workers on temporary employment visas."

Cloudera was accused of posting openings for at least seven jobs — paying between $180,000 and $294,000 per year — that asked U.S. applicants to submit applications to a dedicated email address. However, the address did not accept messages from external email accounts, and applicants simply received an error message in response.

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Therefore Cloudera did not have any record of a person applying for particular roles, the DOJ stated.

The alleged end result was Cloudera attempting to fill the roles with temporary foreign workers through the permanent labor certification process, while "repeatedly" telling the Department of Labor that it couldn't find any qualified American workers.

"Employers cannot use the PERM sponsorship process as a back door for discriminating against U.S. workers," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. "The Division will not hesitate to sue companies who intentionally deter U.S. workers from applying to American jobs."

The DOJ said an American worker alleged discrimination after attempting to apply to Cloudera via the designated email address but "received a bounce-back notification."

Cloudera spokeswoman Hannah Fairbanks said in a statement to Blaze News that the company is "proud to hire American workers."

"We do not discriminate against U.S. workers — or anyone — on the basis of citizenship status. We take the DOJ’s allegations seriously, and from the start, we have cooperated fully with the DOJ’s investigation, which stems from a recruiting email account that was simply not working as intended," she continued.

"We believe the government's claims misunderstand both our hiring processes and our intent, and we will address the matter through the appropriate legal channels. Cloudera is committed to fair, lawful, and open recruitment practices, and we will continue to cooperate with the DOJ as we work to resolve this matter. Because this is now pending litigation, we cannot comment further at this time."

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Cloudera co-founder Amr Awadallah. Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Cloudera is charged with one count of discrimination in hiring: deterring U.S. workers; one count of discrimination in hiring: failing to consider U.S. workers; and one count of discrimination in hiring: failing to hire U.S. workers.

Cloudera had a reported revenue of $869.3 million for fiscal year 2021 and was sold that October in an all-cash deal for approximately $5.3 billion.

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