The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will focus its national-origin bias enforcement on companies found to be showing a preference for hiring immigrant workers over U.S. citizens, the agency recently announced.
“The EEOC is putting employers and other covered entities on notice: If you are part of the pipeline contributing to our immigration crisis or abusing our legal immigration system via illegal preferences against American workers, you must stop,” said EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas. “The EEOC is here to protect all workers from unlawful national origin discrimination, including American workers.”
The agency said it will step up investigations, compliance checks, and litigation to achieve this goal.
“Unlawful bias against American workers, in violation of Title VII, is a large-scale problem in multiple industries nationwide,” Lucas said. “Many employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, and visa holders or other legal immigrants over American workers — in direct violation of federal employment law prohibiting national-origin discrimination.”
The EEOC’s stance on anti-American bias marks a notable shift from its usual interpretation of national-origin nondiscrimination.
“Typically, the EEOC’s actions aim to prevent bias against historically marginalized groups, but this focus on anti-American discrimination signals an effort to ensure that U.S. citizens are not unfairly excluded from job...
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