The Department of Labor under the Trump administration has imposed enforcement measures to block foreign labor recruiting for AI company Cloudera Inc., accusing the firm of illegally favoring international workers over qualified American candidates in hiring.

“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 Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling. “Today’s action reflects this Administration’s commitment to holding bad actors accountable when they attempt to circumvent those protections.”

The Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification has halted all permanent labor certification processing for Cloudera-related applications for 180 days. The program allows companies to sponsor international employees for permanent residency. However, it can only be applied after they make an attempt to hire US workers.

“This action follows evidence obtained by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division alleging Cloudera engineered a non-functional recruitment process that prevented qualified American workers from applying for high-paying technology positions while certifying to ETA that no qualified U.S. workers were available. On April 28, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Cloudera with its Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer, which has jurisdiction over cases arising under the INA,” the Labor Department said.

The lawsuit from the DOJ said that the company violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by “intentionally discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of hiring workers with temporary visas.”

“Employers cannot use the PERM sponsorship process as a backdoor for discriminating against U.S. workers,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Division will not hesitate to sue companies who intentionally deter U.S. workers from applying to American jobs.”