A summary of employers' anti-discrimination obligations under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) and examples of discriminatory practices. This Update also includes resources to assist employers in their compliance with IRCA's anti-discrimination law.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) prohibits employers from discriminating based on national origin or citizenship in hiring, firing, recruiting or referring for a fee, or the employment eligibility verification process. IRCA's anti-discrimination law is enforced by the Office of Special Counsel for Unfair Immigration-Related Employment Practices (OSC), a department in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Employers should understand what conduct is prohibited by IRCA and ensure the conduct does not occur in their own organizations.
The first step in preventing discrimination is recognizing what constitutes national origin or citizenship discrimination under IRCA. Examples of discriminatory conduct under IRCA include:
Refusing to hire workers who look or sound foreign.
Preferring to hire US citizens (unless permitted or required to do so).
Hiring undocumented workers instead of individuals with employment authorization.
Demanding specific documents from non-US citizen workers during the Form I-9 process.
Asking non-US citizens for more documents than needed to complete the Form I-9.
Rejecting valid employment authorization documents from non-US citizens.
Using E-Verify to selectively pre-screen non-US citizen workers.
Retaliating against a worker who asserts rights under IRCA's anti-discrimination law.