The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it is filing suit against a Colorado company, Crop Production Services, accused of discriminating against job applicants because they were Americans.
The lawsuit alleges that the Colorado company Crop Production Services, Inc., "knowingly and intentionally committed citizenship status discrimination" by refusing to hire at least three American job applicants who applied to work as seasonal technicians. The allegation is that, instead of hiring these able-bodied and qualified Americans, Crop Production Services chose to hire foreign temporary workers through the H-2B visa program. The Federal H-2B visa program allows companies to fill unskilled labor positions with temporary foreign workers when they cannot find an American to do the job. In fact, in order to qualify to hire through the H-2B system, firms must certify to the federal government that "there are not enough U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified, and available to of the temporary work." Many agricultural firms attest that they have no choice but to hire through the H-2B visa program because they cannot find sufficient Americans to do agricultural jobs. A DOJ review of Crop Production Services' H-2B applications revealed that they had turned down able, willing, qualified, and available Americans, choosing instead to hire foreign temporary workers to fill the positions.
Additionally, the DOJ accuses Crop Production Services of deliberately making the American applicants jump through hoops in order to apply for the positions. For example, the company required the American applicants to undergo a drug test off-site before they could even be considered, H-2B temporary workers were allowed to take their drug tests after being hired, with almost half of them not even forced to take a drug test at all.
In the spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American," announced Attorney General Jeff Sessions, "the Department of Justice will not tolerate employers who discriminate against U.S. workers because of a desire to hire temporary foreign visa holders... Where there is a job available, U.S. workers should have a chance at it before we bring in workers from abroad.”Since the Protecting American Workers Initiative was launched in early March, this is the first lawsuit to go after a company for allegedly abusing the foreign worker visa system and discriminating against Americans. However, reports have surfaced indicating that the DOJ reached a settlement with at least one company on a similar charge. So far this year, the DOJ's Civil Rights Division has launched at least 29 investigations into "“potential discrimination against U.S. workers based on a hiring preference for foreign visa workers." The DOJ lawsuit seeks backpay on behalf of the workers, civil penalties, and other "remedial relief" to rectify the discrimination and prevent it from occurring again. The American workers named in the suit have also obtained legal counsel and launched a private suit.
