Under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1324b, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section has jurisdiction over citizenship or immigration status discrimination claims involving employers with four or more employees with respect to hiring, firing, and recruitment or referral for a fee. Citizenship status includes a person’s immigration status. United States citizens, many recent lawful permanent residents, asylees, and refugees are protected from citizenship status discrimination. However, an employer that engages in citizenship status discrimination to comply with a law, regulation, executive order, or government contract is exempt from this provision.

The Immigration and Nationality Act also prohibits national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, recruitment or referral for a fee. The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section has jurisdiction over national origin discrimination claims involving employers with more than 3 and fewer than 15 employees. National origin can include one’s place of birth, country of origin, ancestry, native language, accent, or “foreign” appearance. All work-authorized individuals are protected from national origin discrimination under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Moreover, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section has jurisdiction to address national origin discrimination that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, does not cover either because of Title VII’s employer size requirement or because Title VII does not include a cause of action for a type of national origin discrimination covered by the Immigration and Nationality Act’s antidiscrimination provision (e.g., unfair documentary practices based on national origin, as described below).

The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section also has jurisdiction over claims of unfair documentary practices (formerly referred to as “document abuse”) related to verifying the employment eligibility of employees. Employers may not request more or different documents than are required to verify employment eligibility, reject reasonably genuine-looking documents, or specify certain documents over others with the purpose or intent of discriminating on the basis of citizenship status or national origin. This violation typically takes place when employers complete the Form I-9 and, for E-Verify users, run a worker through E-Verify.

Finally, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section has jurisdiction over claims of retaliation under the Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision. Individuals who file charges with the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, who cooperate with an Immigrant and Employee Rights Section investigation, who contest actions that may constitute unfair immigration related employment practices, or who otherwise assert their rights under the Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision are protected from retaliation, intimidation, coercion, and threats.

[added March 2018]