Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) has decided that they will pick and choose which laws they allow you to follow, as they have begun investigating Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX, for preferring to hire American citizens instead of illegal immigrants.
Hiring Illegals… Is Illegal
An article from Ford Murray Law discusses the issue of hiring illegals: “The hiring of undocumented immigrants, whether purposeful or not, is illegal… There are very serious risks and potential penalties for any employer that knowingly hires undocumented immigrants.” Apparently Biden’s Department of Justice doesn’t care about the law, only about radical left-wing immigration policies. If it is simultaneously illegal to hire illegal immigrants, and illegal to reject illegal immigrants during the hiring process, what are American business owners supposed to do?
The DOJ Goes After SpaceX
According to the DOJ, an illegal immigrant inquired about the position of technology strategy associate at SpaceX in March of 2020, and was asked about his citizenship status. Lisa Sandoval, an attorney for the DOJ, claims that SpaceX “ultimately failed to hire him for the position because he is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.”
On May 29, 2020, the illegal immigrant filed a complaint of employee discrimination with the DOJ’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER). According to reporting by the Daily Wire, “The IER enforces the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which has an anti-discrimination provision prohibiting citizenship status and national origin discrimination in hiring, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee.”
On January 28, the DOJ filed a request with a judge “to order SpaceX to comply with an administrative subpoena for documents related to how the company hires,” according to CNBC. The DOJ is requesting that SpaceX comply with the subpoena within two weeks.
The Back and Forth
The IER notified SpaceX through an email on June 8, 2020 that an investigation was underway, and requested that the company provide them with documents related to its hiring and employment eligibility verification processes.
“IER’s investigation is not … limited only to the specific allegations and/or claims that [the Charging Party] made in the charge summarized above. Our investigation therefore may also explore whether [SpaceX] engages in any pattern or practice of discrimination that 8 U.S.C. § 1324b prohibits,” the letter stated.
According to information from the document filed on January 28, SpaceX responded to the letter on August 28 by sending the DOJ a Form 1-9 spreadsheet, but the company “refused to produce any Form I-9 supporting documentation, such as copies of employees’ passports, driver’s licenses, or Social Security cards, as requested.”
SpaceX received the subpoena on October 12, and filed a petition to either revoke or modify the subpoena on October 26, arguing that it exceeded the IER’s authority.
The Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer (OCAHO) denied SpaceX’s petition on December 1, 2020, ordering the company to comply with the subpoena. Instead of doing so, SpaceX fought back, stating that it had received the order, but notifying IER that it did “not intend to produce any additional information in response to the administrative subpoena.”
The DOJ asserted, “This Court should order SpaceX to comply with the Subpoena because, as OCAHO ruled: (1) IER has authority to investigate SpaceX, (2) IER followed proper procedural requirements, (3) the evidence sought by the Subpoena is directly relevant to IER’s investigation, and (4) the investigation is not unduly burdensome.”
“Petitioner’s failure to establish overbreadth or undue burden also means that this Court should not modify the Subpoena, such as by requiring IER to accept a sampling of the Form I-9 supporting documentation or anything less than what is sought,” the DOJ concluded.
Basically, SpaceX is fighting against this unfair investigation initiated by the Department of Justice, and they should. How is it possible to be investigated for following the law? If SpaceX had hired the illegal immigrant, they could have been subject to serious penalties.
