The Department of Justice (DOJ) reported it has secured a settlement agreement with a Virginia information technology services firm that is says discriminated against U.S. workers by advertising jobs with unauthorized citizenship status restrictions.

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division alleged that Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Inc. violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) when it posted job advertisements generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that included citizenship status restrictions not authorized by law, including language restricting consideration only to applicants with H-1B, OPT, or H-4 visas.

The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER), in the Civil Rights Division, is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA, which protects U.S. citizens and certain other work-authorized individuals from employment discrimination based upon citizenship or immigration status.

The INA also protects all work authorized individuals from national origin discrimination, unfair documentary practices relating to the employment eligibility verification process, and from retaliation.

Settlements and Lawsuits

“It is unconscionable for companies to illegally exclude U.S. workers when recruiting and hiring,” commented Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate discriminating against U.S. workers, no matter who — or what — drafts a job advertisement, or whether it is an employee, a recruiter, or an AI tool.”

Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions has agreed to pay a civil penalty of $9,460.

An H-1B visa allows U.S. employers to temporarily hire foreign professionals in “specialty occupations” requiring at least a bachelor’s degree, such as technology, engineering, healthcare, finance and research. In an attempt to restrict the number, the Trump Administration began imposing a $100,000 fee on each petition for an H-1B last September.

An Optional Practice Training (OPT) visa allows international students to gain work experience in their fields of study, while H-4 visas are for spouses and dependent children of work visa holders but are not work visas.

DOJ said this settlement is the eighth settlement it has reached with companies that it said illegally discriminated against U.S. workers in favor of those with employment visas.

*This article was originally published by Insurance Journal, CM’s sister publication.