Green-card cases freeze at eight companies

The Labor Department will neither accept new PERM applications nor process pending ones involving Microsoft, Adobe, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Capgemini. The administration announced the company-specific action Thursday while accusing the firms of abusing employment-immigration programs and displacing U.S. workers. Those are the administration’s claims, not findings that the companies violated the law. Reuters, CNN, Politico

PERM is the employer-run step that opens the path to many work-based green cards. Before a company can ask USCIS to approve a worker’s immigrant petition, it usually has to show that it recruited for the job and could not find a qualified, available U.S. worker. The freeze does not cancel H-1B visas or green cards already granted. It stops these eight employers from moving new or pending cases through that earlier step. DOL, eCFR

For people already waiting, the immediate cost is more time without a clear endpoint. The government has not publicly set out how long the freeze will last or how it will handle deadlines and other cases caught in the middle. Microsoft disputed the administration’s characterization, saying most of its recent H-1B filings were extensions or status changes for employees already there, not new hires. Semafor, CNBC

The Supreme Court sends Venezuelan TPS case back to the Ninth Circuit

The Supreme Court has wiped out a Ninth Circuit ruling that favored Venezuelan TPS holders and told the appeals court to reconsider the case. In Mullin v. National TPS Alliance, No. 26-48, the justices granted the government’s petition, vacated the lower-court judgment and remanded the case in light of Mullin v. Doe. In plain English: the Court did not decide the TPS fight again from scratch; it erased the Ninth Circuit’s result and directed that court to take another look under a newer Supreme Court decision. Supreme Court order, SCOTUSblog

That grant-vacate-remand order changes the legal footing of the case, but it does not itself announce a new Venezuela TPS end date or make every Venezuelan removable overnight. Nor does it automatically void every work permit: a person’s ability to remain or work can depend on the country-specific federal notices, the next Ninth Circuit ruling and any other immigration protection they hold. For people whose only protection and work authorization came through TPS, the uncertainty is immediate; the Court’s short order simply does not answer every individual consequence. Univision, LA NACION

ICE appears to be using a New Jersey warehouse despite halted conversion plan

NPR found evidence that ICE has been using a warehouse in Roxbury, New Jersey, to hold people even though litigation and a court order halted its conversion into a detention center pending environmental review. The reporting follows vehicles after a Dover enforcement operation and includes accounts from people taken to the site; the New Jersey attorney general was reviewing similar reports. NPR’s evidence points to use of the warehouse, not to a completed or publicly acknowledged permanent detention conversion. NPR

A separate hunger strike begins at Folkston

Earlier this week, The Marshall Project reported on a hunger strike at the El Valle Detention Facility in Raymondville, Texas. Now, 73 people are refusing food at the D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Folkston, Georgia. People held there released a video and open letter describing prolonged detention, separation from family and alleged abusive conditions. This is a separate action at a different facility, with its own account of conditions and confinement. The Guardian

People in the video include asylum seekers who say they have been held for months or years. Their allegations concern medical care, food, water and staff conduct; they are not adjudicated findings. EL PAÍS reported that participants said they had open asylum cases, while GEO Group referred questions to ICE and DHS did not give a detailed response to other reporting. EL PAÍS

Around the system

• ICE waived Adelanto’s standard 14-day health assessment, according to a mortality review obtained by Scripps News. The review said care for Ismael Ayala-Uribe, who died after a worsening infection, “deviated beyond safe limits of practice.” DHS did not answer the outlet’s questions about whether the waiver remains in place. Scripps News

• Central Valley, California, school districts alerted families as reports of ICE activity spread. Fresno-area districts said they do not collect students’ immigration-status information and described support available to families amid concern about enforcement activity. Fresno Bee

• OPB verified a sharp rise in visible immigration arrests around Portland, Oregon. The outlet confirmed at least nine people detained Tuesday across Gresham, Troutdale and eastern Portland, with more reports of activity the following day. OPB

• GEO Group is challenging a new California detention law in federal court. Senate Bill 942 seeks to guarantee people in federal immigration detention access to mental-health services, medical care and adequate food; GEO argues that California cannot impose its standards on federal detention operations. Fresno Bee

• Civil-rights groups allege abuse and neglect at Florida’s “Deportation Depot.” Their demand letter describes claims involving pepper spray, beatings, medical neglect, food and water at Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, Florida. A DeSantis spokesperson called the allegations “fake,” while DHS and Florida emergency-management officials did not respond before publication. Miami Herald

• A new BIA precedent says return travel to a claimed country of persecution can abandon a pending protection case. In Matter of M-R-I-, the Board held that return under advance parole presumptively abandons asylum, withholding and Convention Against Torture claims unless the person establishes compelling reasons. EOIR (Matter of M-R-I-)

• Unions, immigrant-rights groups and green-card applicants sued over two USCIS policies. Their complaint challenges a policy treating adjustment of status from inside the United States as an adverse factor and another allowing denials without first issuing a request for evidence or notice of intent to deny. Filing the suit did not itself pause either policy. Complaint, USCIS policy alert

• DACA renewal delays are leaving some recipients without work authorization before USCIS reaches their applications. CBS News found the pending-renewal backlog climbed above 125,000 while the number of active recipients declined, though USCIS says it has recently increased adjudications. CBS News