PERM Violation by Apple
The Justice Department announced today that it has secured a landmark agreement with Apple Inc. (Apple) to resolve allegations that Apple illegally discriminated in hiring and recruitment against U.S. citizens and certain non-U.S. citizens whose permission to live in and work in the United States does not expire. Under the agreement, Apple is required to pay up to $25 million in backpay and civil penalties, the largest award that the department has recovered under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality act (INA). “Creating unlawful barriers that make it harder for someone to seek a job because of their citizenship status will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This resolution reflects the Civil Rights Division’s commitment to ending illegal discriminatory employment practices.” The settlement agreement resolves the department’s determination that Apple violated the INA’s anti-discrimination requirements during Apple’s recruitment for positions falling under the permanent labor certification program (PERM). The PERM program is administered by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It allows employers to sponsor workers for lawful permanent resident status in the United States after completing recruitment and meeting other program requirements. Any U.S. employer that utilizes the PERM program cannot illegally discriminate in hiring or recruitment based on citizenship or immigration status. TLDR: DOJ secures $25 Million Landmark Agreement with Apple for how the company handled PERM recruitment. DOJ found that Apple engaged in a pattern or practice of citizenship status discrimination in recruitment for positions it hired through PERM. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-secures-25-million-landmark-agreement-apple-resolve-employment
Would be nice if they kneecapped apple on PERM quotas. Would be nicer if they did Amazon next, or any other company that feels the need to fire a percentage of it's workforce yearly just for shits and giggles.
So Apple was intentionally avoiding US citizens? Isn’t sponsorship expensive? Why would they do this? I also feel like Apple evades laws with how they hire and use contractors like employees.
What about cts, tcs, compunel and other desi trash.
This is not very different from FB. How did fb face a lot of music while 🍎 just got away with some fine?
Big Tech abuses the shit out of PERM. Any PERM requests in this market from Big Tech should be unequivocally denied.
IMO, this situation is actually really common at tech companies: 1. They hire a fresh PhD on OPT 2. They work for a year or so and move to H1B 3. After 1 to 2 years, it is time to file for green card which is where the company needs to show that there are no eligible US persons able to take this job. What does the company do in such a situation? They obviously don't want to give up on the training and investment they have made in the foreign worker (salary may actually be higher or lower and overall cost to company is definitely higher due to visa costs). The thing that's motivating the company is two-fold - no need to onboard a new employee (perhaps incurring higher one time cost of sign on bonus and stock, even if salary is lower) and no loss of productivity if employee churn can be avoided. The real issue here isn't that companies are trying to game the system, it is that the system is broken - there should just be one moment in time when the company has to make the case that they need a foreign worker - having them make the case twice (once during H1B and then again for PERM / green card things) is basically setting them up with every incentive to game the system like Apple did.
The system isn’t actually broken, and that’s why Apple ran into trouble. The DOL needs to tighten the screws and close the loopholes.
You are not thinking about how much of a mess it will create in people's lives. Imagine getting a really good job after your PhD in year 1, then getting lucky on the H1B lottery and being on a visa for a few years and then a few years later, just when you think you might be able to live in this country, if there is a downturn in the economy, suddenly you might no longer be able to stay in a place where you have made your life and put down roots. Treating immigrants like they are disposable labor to be brought in when needed and dumped when they are not isn't good immigration policy and that's what I think is broken.
I really wish these kinds of cases included a civil class action component, in addition to a DOJ settlement. All I read is, "humans got screwed over doing something the old folks in D.C. said was bad. Old folks collect and spend $25million to put holes in Ukraine while the humans who got screwed get screwed again". It'd really make more sense for them to rename "department of justice" to "department of nontaxable revenue generation" since we've producticized crime.
I read elsewhere that a big chunk of this is for backpay