US bars tech firm Cloudera from Green Card program for two years, orders $2 million settlement

The US government has barred California-based technology company Cloudera from participating in the employment-based Green Card sponsorship process for two years and secured a $2 million settlement over allegations that it discriminated against American workers during recruitment.

The agreement, announced by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Labor (DOL), resolves a federal lawsuit alleging that Cloudera violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by disadvantaging qualified US workers while recruiting for seven positions under the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) programme. The company will establish a $1.4 million fund for eligible American workers who were not given fair consideration and pay an additional $600,000 in civil penalties to the government.

The two-year debarment is significant for the technology sector because PERM is generally the first major stage in an employer-sponsored employment-based Green Card application. The action also comes amid a wider US crackdown on employers’ use of immigration sponsorship programmes, with Indian technology companies and Indian professionals closely watching changes to the process.

Why the US government imposed the two-year ban

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit against Cloudera in April 2026, alleging that the company discriminated against US workers in favour of employees holding temporary work visas during recruitment for seven positions.

Under the PERM system, employers generally must demonstrate that there are insufficient qualified, willing, able and available US workers for a particular position and that employing a foreign worker will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed US workers.

Federal authorities alleged that Cloudera’s recruitment practices denied qualified American applicants a fair opportunity to compete for the positions. The settlement resolves those allegations without requiring the company to continue litigating the case.

The DOL had previously suspended Cloudera’s PERM processing before the two-year debarment was announced. Under the final resolution, the company must also comply with enhanced monitoring, revised compliance procedures and additional reporting requirements intended to prevent future violations.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the settlement demonstrated the administration’s commitment to enforcing protections for American workers.

“There are no exceptions: the Justice Department will hold accountable employers who discriminate against U.S. workers,” Dhillon said in the department’s announcement.

Cloudera has disputed the suggestion that it intentionally discriminates. According to Bloomberg Law, a company spokesperson said an email address used in the recruitment process had inadvertently been restricted to internal employees and that the company had taken corrective action after learning of the problem. The spokesperson said the company remained committed to fair and lawful recruitment.

The settlement comprises two separate payments. The $1.4 million fund is intended to compensate qualified US workers who sought to apply for the positions but did not receive fair consideration. The remaining $600,000 constitutes civil penalties payable to the government.

What the action means for Indian H-1B workers

The Cloudera case is particularly relevant to Indian professionals because many technology workers enter the United States on H-1B visas before seeking permanent residency through employer sponsorship.

However, the two programmes serve different purposes. An H-1B visa permits eligible foreign professionals to work temporarily in the United States, while PERM is a labour-certification process generally required before an employer can file an employment-based immigrant petition in categories such as EB-2 and EB-3.

The two-year restriction therefore prevents Cloudera from participating in PERM sponsorship during the debarment period. It does not, by itself, cancel existing H-1B visas or automatically revoke Green Cards already granted to the company’s employees.

For Indian workers employed by Cloudera who have not completed the labour-certification stage, the restriction could complicate or delay the employer-sponsored route to permanent residency. The consequences for individual employees will depend on their immigration stage, existing approvals, eligibility for alternative routes and whether another employer is willing and able to sponsor them.

Employees whose PERM applications are pending should seek advice from qualified US immigration counsel about the status of their cases and the implications of the debarment. They should not assume that a pending application will proceed normally or that changing employers will automatically preserve their existing immigration timeline.

The enforcement action also signals the administration’s willingness to impose substantial financial penalties and programme restrictions when employers are found to have violated recruitment requirements. The DOJ said the Cloudera settlement was the fourteenth settlement since it relaunched its Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative in 2025.

The broader context is a series of restrictions and enforcement actions affecting technology companies’ access to the PERM programme. Earlier in October, reports identified several major technology firms, including Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe, as affected by suspensions of PERM processing. The circumstances and duration of restrictions may differ by company, so the Cloudera settlement should not be treated as proof that every affected employer faces the same penalty.

For Indian professionals planning long-term careers in the United States, the distinction between temporary work authorisation and permanent residency is becoming increasingly important. An employer’s ability to sponsor a worker for a Green Card can be affected by labour-certification restrictions even when the worker’s separate temporary immigration status remains valid.

The Cloudera settlement ultimately puts employers’ recruitment practices under renewed scrutiny. For foreign professionals, the immediate priority is to understand which immigration stage their case has reached, whether their employer remains eligible to sponsor them and what lawful alternatives may be available if the process is interrupted.