Cloudera had US candidates send resumes to a fake email address, DoJ charges
PERM filings require employers to show American workers had a fair shot at the role
The US Department of Justice has accused data and AI platform provider Cloudera of abusing a program designed to give permanent residency to foreign workers who take tough-to-fill positions by creating a parallel hiring process that dumped the applications of Americans to a non-functional email address.
The DoJ announced Tuesday it had filed a lawsuit against Cloudera with its own Executive Office for Immigration Review, alleging multiple violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act by the firm for "intentionally discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of hiring workers with temporary visas."
Cloudera's alleged discriminatory practices center on the Department of Labor's permanent labor certification program (PERM), a process employers use to sponsor workers already holding temporary visas such as H-1B for permanent jobs when no minimally qualified and available US worker can fill the role.
For instance, filing a PERM application requires a company like Cloudera to certify that conclusion after completing a prescribed recruitment process and documenting lawful job-related reasons for rejecting any US applicants. Employers must post the role with a State Workforce Agency for at least 30 days, post notice internally, and advertise it twice in a newspaper of general circulation. For professional roles, they must also use at least three additional recruitment methods, such as job fairs, private employment firms, referral programs, college placement offices, or similar channels. Only then can an employer proceed with a PERM filing tied to a specific worker.
Approval of that labor certification lets an employer move on to immigration filings that can eventually support permanent residency.
According to the DOJ, Cloudera did not follow that process.
"Cloudera … upended its normal hiring process and did exactly what the law prohibits," the DoJ alleges, "because the company earmarked certain jobs for workers on temporary employment visas."
Unlike its normal hiring process, where Cloudera advertises jobs and allows candidates to submit an application through its website, the company allegedly skipped advertising at least seven positions in that way, and told Americans to file via an email address that didn't actually work.
"Cloudera set up a non-functional email address and instructed candidates to individually email resumes for each job they sought," the complaint alleges. "Thus, when an external candidate applied for a job using the faulty email address the company advertised, Cloudera did not receive any record to track that person's application."
If true, that clearly undercuts the requirement that the company tracks US applicants before going the PERM route.
"Having created a separate hiring process with an email address where U.S. workers could not succeed, Cloudera then repeatedly attested to the U.S. Department of Labor that it was unable to find any qualified U.S. workers," the DoJ said.
That separate hiring process is a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, according to the DoJ, and the fact it allegedly went on for nearly a year between 2024 and 2025 suggests "a pattern or practice of citizenship status discrimination."
So Cloudera faces three alleged violations under the INA: deterring, failing to consider, and failing to hire US workers for at least the seven positions that are the subject of the complaint.
If it's found liable, Cloudera will be on the hook for unspecified damages including lost wages (with interest) "to each protected individual discriminated against" as part of its PERM scheme, "an appropriate civil penalty," and an injunction on its bad behavior.
That said, Cloudera might not end up having to pay too much. Apple settled similar allegations with the DoJ in 2023, agreeing to pay a mere $25 million for similarly discriminating against US workers in favor of PERM applicants. As we noted in 2023, that fine amounted to a tenth of a percent of Apple's Q3 net income that year.
"Cloudera is proud to hire American workers. We do not discriminate against U.S. workers—or anyone—on the basis of citizenship status," a Cloudera spokesperson told The Register. "We take the DOJ’s allegations seriously, and from the start, we have cooperated fully with the DOJ’s investigation, which stems from a recruiting email account that was simply not working as intended. We believe the government’s claims misunderstand both our hiring processes and our intent, and we will address the matter through the appropriate legal channels. Cloudera is committed to fair, lawful, and open recruitment practices, and we will continue to cooperate with the DOJ as we work to resolve this matter."
Cloudera, which was taken private in 2021, had approximately 3,200 employees as of August 2025, according to Pitchbook data. ®
Updated on April 29 with statement from Cloudera.