Washington:
The US Department of Justice has announced that it has signed a settlement agreement with an IT staffing and recruiting organization primarily based in Texas for routinely discriminating against domestic workers in favour of short-term work visas, such as the H-1B.
The Justice Department on Tuesday alleged that Ikon Systems routinely discriminated against the US workers by posting job ads specifying a preference for applicants with short-term work visas, and that the organization failed to take into consideration at least a single US citizen applicant who applied to a discriminatory advertisement.
Employers, no matter their size and no matter their market, can not limit employment possibilities only to short-term visa holders. When employers post job ads that discriminate against US workers, they violate the Immigration and Nationality Act’s (INA) citizenship-status discrimination provision, stated Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband of the Civil Rights Division.
Our message is clear: if employers discriminate in marketing, recruiting, or hiring against US workers by illegally preferring short-term visa holders, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division will act to safeguard them below the Immigration and Nationality Act, he stated.
H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that permits American corporations to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that need theoretical or technical experience. The US difficulties up to 85,000 H-1B visas every year. Usually, they are issued for 3 years and renewable. Most of the practically 600,000 H-1B visa holders are from India and China.
The Department of Justice stated that this is the 11th settlement by the Civil Rights Division below its 2017 Protecting US Workers Initiative, which is aimed at targeting, investigating, and taking enforcement actions against corporations that discriminate against US workers in favour of short-term visa workers.
Investigations against Ikon started immediately after a US citizen filed a discrimination complaint with the Civil Rights Division.
Based on its investigation, the Department concluded that from May 8, 2019, to September 21, 2019, Ikon posted at least eight facially discriminatory job ads targeting non-US citizens with immigration statuses related with employment-primarily based visas.
For instance, the investigation revealed that a single of Ikon’s ads stated, Looking for OPT, CPT, H4 EAD, and H-1B transfer. The Department also determined that Ikon failed to adequately take into consideration a US citizen’s application to a single of the job postings due to his citizenship status.
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