India, Aug. 15 -- The US Department of Justice is stepping up enforcement against companies accused of favoring foreign workers over American employees, with technology and IT services firms facing growing scrutiny over how they recruit workers for green-card sponsorship.

The Justice Department's Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, or IER, has increasingly focused on the labor certification process known as PERM, attorneys told Bloomberg Law. The enforcement push comes as the Trump administration places greater emphasis on protecting US workers and examining whether employers give temporary visa holders an advantage in recruitment.

The latest major case involves OpenAI, which agreed this month to pay $3.2 million to resolve DOJ alleg...