Gov’t Accuses Company Of Discrimination Over Employees Having To Prove Citizenship Status

[Rob L 3,811]

What I took away from it is that the illegals are suing because they are being forced to prove themselves (and cannot), whereas other US citizens are not being forced to prove citizenship.

Who said illegals are suing? The action was being brought on behalf of non citizens and the law is quite clear you cannot ask one group of people for a set of documents that you don't ask others for and the list of documents used to verify ability to work are standard for the I-9

http://www.justice.gov/crt/frequently-asked-questions-faqs#act

The Immigration and Nationality Act's (INA) anti-discrimination provision, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1324b, prohibits four types of discriminatory unfair employment practices:

• Citizenship or immigration status discrimination with respect to hiring, firing, and recruitment or referral for a fee, by employers with four or more workers, subject to certain exceptions. Employers may not treat individuals differently because they are or are not U.S. citizens or because of their work-authorized immigration status. U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, recent permanent residents, asylees, and refugees are protected from citizenship status discrimination. Lawful permanent residents who do not apply for naturalization within six months of eligibility and work-authorized individuals on employment visas are not protected from citizenship status discrimination. An employer may restrict hiring to U.S. citizens only when required to do so by law, regulation, executive order, or government contract.

• National origin discrimination with respect to hiring, firing, and recruitment or referral for a fee, by employers with 4 to 14 workers. Employers may not treat individuals differently because of their place of birth, country of origin, ancestry, native language, accent or because they are perceived as looking or sounding "foreign." All work-authorized individuals are protected from national origin discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has jurisdiction over national origin discrimination claims against employers with 15 or more workers.

• Unfair documentary practices related to verifying the employment eligibility of employees during the I-9 or E-Verify processes. Employers may not, on the basis of citizenship status or national origin, request more or different documents than are required to verify employment eligibility and identity, reject reasonably genuine-looking documents, or specify certain documents over others. All work-authorized individuals are protected from document abuse

[ready4ONE 5,400]

I am guessing that the company was in violation of the second to last paragraph above.

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Well, different groups of people would, by their very status, have to show different documents. It would not work to ask EVERYONE for a EAD or GC. Just as it would not be fair to ask everyone to show a US driver's license or passport. That's why there's multiple lists of acceptable documents. I could not find exactly what this company was asking one group vs. another, so until we know, it's all just supposition. (Though ready4one's guess above is as good as any; makes sense to me)