The Department of Justice announced on August 4, 2026, that it has secured a $3.2 million settlement with OpenAI and its subsidiary Statsig Inc. over allegations that the companies systematically discriminated against U.S. workers during recruitment tied to the Permanent Labor Certification (PERM) process — the critical first step for most employment-based green card applications.
The OpenAI settlement is the largest of 13 the DOJ has negotiated as part of its Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative
, a program that has become a centerpiece of the current administration's immigration enforcement strategy.
What the DOJ Found
According to the DOJ, OpenAI did not advertise positions it sought to fill through the PERM program on its job website, even though its standard practice was to do so with other jobs. Federal investigators alleged that the company required applicants to mail paper applications for those jobs while accepting electronic applications for other positions, and in some cases aired radio advertisements late at night
— practices the government said were designed to discourage U.S. workers from applying.
According to the settlement, the mail requirement was not imposed during ordinary recruitment and was not required by the PERM process.
The Justice Department found reasonable cause to believe that the different application methods violated a federal law prohibiting citizenship status discrimination in recruitment and hiring.
The investigation covered five OpenAI job advertisements and one Statsig recruitment effort. Federal officials concluded that the alleged conduct at OpenAI began no later than June 2023 and continued through at least April 2025. The Statsig matter involved a recruitment effort in July 2025.
Perhaps most strikingly,
fewer than 10 positions were at issue
— yet the resulting settlement topped $3 million, demonstrating that even small-scale PERM programs can attract outsized federal scrutiny and financial consequences.
The Settlement Terms
Under the agreement, the company will pay $1.2 million in civil penalties and $2 million to compensate victims of the companies' discriminatory practices.
The company also agreed to modify its hiring procedures, advertise PERM positions on its public careers site, accept electronic applications, revise employment policies, train personnel on immigration-related anti-discrimination requirements and submit to federal monitoring and reporting provisions.
The settlement will remain in effect for three years, during which OpenAI and Statsig will be subject to DOJ monitoring and reporting requirements designed to ensure compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws governing recruitment tied to the PERM process.
The amount ultimately paid to workers will depend on how many applicants the Justice Department finds eligible for compensation. OpenAI and Statsig must provide the government with information about people who applied for the covered positions. The review includes OpenAI applications submitted beginning June 1, 2023, and Statsig applications submitted beginning July 1, 2025.
OpenAI's Response
OpenAI denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement.
A company spokesperson stated that OpenAI's mission is to "ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity."
"While we disagree with the DOJ's findings, we reached this agreement to resolve the matter and move forward with our PERM program, which is critical for employees and candidates requiring immigration support," the spokesperson added.
Understanding the PERM Process and Why This Matters
For those unfamiliar,
PERM is the first step in the process of applying for most employment-based lawful permanent residency (green card) applications. The objective of PERM is to protect U.S. workers and the job market — the process was created to ensure that foreign workers are not filling the positions that could otherwise be filled by qualified U.S. workers.
The employer must attest to the Department of Labor that the position requires a foreign worker, as shown by a test of the labor market proving that a U.S. worker cannot fill the role due to a lack of qualified, willing, and available applicants.
The DOJ's theory in this case is straightforward: if an employer makes it harder for U.S. workers to discover or apply for PERM-linked positions — through buried job postings, antiquated application methods, or obscure advertising — then the required labor market test is effectively rigged. The result, according to federal investigators, is that the employer can claim no qualified U.S. applicants were found, when in reality qualified Americans were simply never given a fair chance to apply.
A Pattern of Escalating Enforcement
This settlement is part of an unmistakable trend.
The Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative was re-launched in 2025 to target, investigate and take enforcement action against companies that favor temporary foreign visa holders over American workers. The program was originally created during President Donald Trump's first term in 2017 but was deprioritized during the Biden administration.
It is a fact pattern immigration and employment counsel should recognize immediately, because it is not new: IER reached a similar settlement with Facebook in 2021, Apple in 2023, and as of this spring, IER is in active litigation against Cloudera over a comparable practice.
Like in other cases involving tech firms, the government concluded that a recruitment process that makes it more difficult for outside candidates to apply is, on its own, enough to show bias.
One immigration attorney quoted by Bloomberg Law observed that
"Compliance with DOL PERM regulations isn't necessarily a shield in the DOJ antidiscrimination context."
That distinction is critical: employers can follow every Department of Labor PERM regulation to the letter and still face Civil Rights Division enforcement if their recruitment methods are deemed to create unequal access for U.S. workers.
Implications for Employers and Foreign Workers
The OpenAI settlement sends several clear signals to employers across the tech sector and beyond:
1. Volume doesn't matter. Fewer than 10 PERM positions generated a $3.2 million settlement. Employers cannot assume that a small green card sponsorship program flies under the radar.
2. Application parity is non-negotiable. If a company accepts online applications for regular positions, it must do the same for PERM-linked roles. Any disparity — paper-only applications, unlisted job postings, obscure advertising channels — may be treated as evidence of discriminatory intent.
3. Monitoring has teeth. Three years of DOJ oversight, combined with mandatory policy rewrites, staff training, and reporting obligations, represent a significant ongoing compliance burden.
For foreign workers currently being sponsored or hoping to be sponsored for green cards through the PERM process, this enforcement trend creates a complicated dynamic.
According to the 2025 Silicon Valley Index, 65% of technology workers in the San Francisco Bay Area tech hub are foreign born.
According to Forbes, nearly two-thirds of the top AI companies in the U.S. were either founded or co-founded by immigrants.
The PERM process remains a legitimate and essential pathway for employers to sponsor talented foreign workers for permanent residency. But this settlement underscores that the recruitment steps preceding a PERM filing must be conducted with genuine good faith — not as a procedural formality designed to yield a predetermined outcome.
These enforcement actions sit inside the Civil Rights Division's Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, relaunched in 2025, which has produced a growing number of settlements over the past year. The Initiative is actively investigating employers today, and settlement values are rising quickly as violations stack.
What Employers Should Do Now
Companies that sponsor workers through the PERM process — regardless of their size or the number of positions involved — should take immediate steps to audit their recruitment practices. At a minimum, employers should ensure that:
- All PERM-linked positions are posted on the same public careers website used for other openings
- Electronic application options are available for PERM positions just as they are for all other roles
- Advertising channels (including print and radio) for PERM recruitment are reasonable, visible, and comparable to those used for similar non-PERM positions
- HR staff and external recruiters receive training on INA anti-discrimination requirements specific to the PERM context
For information about additional settlements under the Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, the public can visit IER's website. For informal assistance, the public can call IER's free hotline at 1-800-255-7688 for workers or 1-800-255-8155 for employers.
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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have questions about PERM compliance or immigration-related employment practices, consult a qualified immigration attorney.