The U.S. Labor Department has suspended Cloudera Inc., a California-based data software company, from the federal government’s PERM program for 180 days after officials found it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by favoring foreign workers over qualified American applicants for high-paying tech jobs.
According to Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, Cloudera “engineered a non-functional recruitment process” that effectively excluded qualified American workers from applying for positions. The agency stated the company was suspended from the federal PERM labor certification program—a pathway allowing employers to sponsor foreign nationals for employment-based green cards—as part of broader federal scrutiny of technology sector visa and labor programs, including concerns over H-1B visas and other foreign worker pipelines.
“Protecting the integrity of our immigration and labor systems requires employers to follow the law and provide American workers a fair opportunity to compete for jobs,” said Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling.
The suspension underscores heightened government oversight of companies exploiting immigration loopholes to undermine U.S. job opportunities, with critics noting that such practices often involve deliberately making job postings inaccessible to Americans to justify foreign hiring.
