API Call to your own Laravel Project

Question

I am struggling to make an API call to my project. Can someone assist me here? This is the command I am entering:

curl.exe -X PUT http://hsk.local/api/v1/applicants/1 \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"status_id": "2"}'

And this is the logic:

public function update(Request $request, Applicant $applicant)
{
    if ($request->status_id == 2)
    {
        $password = Str::password();

        //todo: logic to send this new password via email

        return User::class->create([
            'profile_id' => $applicant->profile_id,
            'password' => $password,
        ]);
    }
    elseif ($request->status_id == 3)
    {
        $applicant->delete();

        //todo: add some better return than this...
        return 'deleted...';
    } else
    {
        $applicant->update([
            'status_id' => $request->status_id
        ]);

        return ApplicantResource::make($applicant->load(['profile', 'status']));
    }
}

I tried dumping all the request and I get an empty JSON back. So it seems like the data is never actually received.