TECHNOMALIST
The U.S. Department of Justice has secured a settlement that gives its Civil Rights Division three-year oversight of OpenAI’s hiring practices for positions tied to green card sponsorships. The agreement, which also covers OpenAI’s former subsidiary Statsig, follows allegations that the companies violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by not making genuine efforts to hire qualified U.S. citizens before sponsoring foreign employees for permanent residency.
The DOJ claims that for fewer than 10 PERM-tracked roles, OpenAI and Statsig employed tactics that effectively excluded U.S. applicants. According to the department, the companies did not list these jobs on public job boards, ran classified advertisements on the radio late at night, and required paper applications instead of electronic submissions.
As part of the settlement, the companies did not admit wrongdoing but agreed to pay a total of $3.2 million. This includes a $1.2 million civil penalty and $2 million set aside for restitution to any U.S. citizen applicants who may have been harmed. The DOJ will determine eligibility for restitution.
More significantly, OpenAI and Statsig must now submit their PERM hiring policies for DOJ approval and provide semiannual reports. These reports must detail how many applications for foreign employees they pursued, how many U.S. citizens they interviewed, and other relevant statistics. The oversight will last for three years.
The DOJ’s investigation began in August 2025, before OpenAI’s acquisition of Statsig in September of that year. It examined five cases at OpenAI from between 2023 and 2025, and one case at Statsig. OpenAI later divested at least part of the Statsig business in May 2026.
The Trump administration’s DOJ characterized the action as part of an intensified crackdown on such violations. However, the INA—originally enacted in 1952—has been enforced by prior administrations against other technology giants. During the Biden administration, Facebook and Apple both reached similar settlements, though in those instances the DOJ alleged that the violations were widespread and systematic, in contrast to the more limited scope alleged against OpenAI and Statsig.
The settlement places one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence companies under direct federal monitoring for its hiring processes, underscoring the continued government scrutiny of technology firms’ immigration practices.
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