By: Bruce E. Buchanan, Sebelist Buchanan Law

The Justice Department, acting through the Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER), has reached settlement agreements with Spike Inc., a moving and storage company doing business as Olympia Moving and Storage, and Adaequare Inc., a company that recruits workers for other companies.

In the Spike case, the IER’s investigation determined that from at least February 1, 2019, to March 11, 2019, Spike discriminated against four U.S. workers by failing to consider them for temporary mover positions at their Philadelphia and Washington, DC metropolitan area locations. Despite receiving applications from these available workers, Spike filled the positions with H-2B visa workers, claiming that it could not find qualified and available U.S. workers. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) prohibits employers from refusing to recruit or hire U.S. workers – i.e., U.S. citizens and nationals, asylees, refugees, and recent lawful permanent residents – because of their citizenship or immigration status.

Under the settlement, Spike will pay $12,000 in civil penalties to the United States; set aside $70,000 in back pay to the affected U.S. workers; conduct enhanced U.S. worker recruitment and advertising for future positions, revise employment policies to prohibit discrimination on the basis of citizenship status, and national origin in the recruitment, hiring, and firing process; train its relevant employees about the requirements of the INA’s anti-discrimination provision by attending a webinar provided by the IER; and be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements for two years.
In the Adaequare case, the IER’s investigation determined that when a client asked Adaequare to only recruit U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents for a job, the company did not first check to make sure that the client was legally allowed to limit jobs to those statuses. Instead, the company unlawfully screened out applicants based on their citizenship or immigration status. Thus, the IER concluded that Adaequare discriminated against refugees, asylees, and non-citizen nationals, based on their citizenship or immigration status.

The INA protects U.S. citizens, non-citizen nationals, refugees, asylees, and recent lawful permanent residents from this type of discrimination. The law has an exception if an employer or recruiter is required to limit jobs due to a law, regulation, executive order, or government contract. However, it was determined Adaequare did not have a legal justification for screening out these workers based on their citizenship or immigration status.

Under the settlement, Adaequare will pay $1,000 in civil penalties to the United States; revise employment policies to prohibit discrimination on the basis of citizenship status, and national origin in the recruitment, hiring, and firing process; train its relevant employees about the requirements of the INA’s anti-discrimination provision by attending a webinar provided by the IER; and be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements for two years.

If you want to know more information on issues related to employer immigration compliance, I recommend you read The I-9 and E-Verify Handbook, a book I co-authored with Greg Siskind, and available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/0997083379.