A California-based data software company violated federal employment discrimination laws by importing foreign workers for high-paying tech jobs instead of hiring qualified Americans, Labor Department officials say.
On Tuesday, officials announced that Cloudera Inc. has been suspended for 180 days from the federal government’s PERM program, which allows companies to import foreign workers on employment-based green cards.
Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said Cloudera violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by discriminating against qualified Americans in their job application process in favor of foreign workers.
“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,” Sonderling said in a statement. “Today’s action reflects this Administration’s commitment to holding bad actors accountable when they attempt to circumvent those protections.”
Cloudera’s suspension from the PERM program may be extended pending a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.
Cloudera “engineered a non-functional recruitment process that prevented qualified American workers from applying for high-paying technology positions while certifying to [the Employment and Training Administration’s Office] that no qualified U.S. workers were available,” officials wrote in a press release.
It is not uncommon for employers to make it difficult for Americans to find such ads for jobs, so executives can claim to the government that they have looked for Americans, that no Americans were available to fill such jobs, and thus be allowed to import foreign workers.
The practice is, in fact, so common that the site Jobs.Now tracks such PERM jobs and posts them so that Americans can apply.
Breitbart News reached out to Cloudera for comment and did not receive a response.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com.
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