POPULAR RESTAURANT GETS
MASSIVE FINE FOR VERIFYING FOREIGN WORKERS, Panda
Express 'too careful' in quest to hire only legal residents, by Leo Hohmann,
6/28/17, WND
The U.S. Department of Justice
announced Wednesday it reached a settlement agreement with Panda Restaurant
Group Inc., a chain of more than 1,800 Chinese-cuisine restaurants the DOJ
accuses of discriminating against non-U.S. citizens in its hiring practices.
The deal resolves the department’s
investigation into whether Panda Express discriminated against non-U.S.
citizens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, or INA, when
verifying employees’ permission to work, according to a DOJ
press release.
According to the DOJ investigation,
Panda Express “unnecessarily required lawful permanent resident workers to
re-establish their work authorization” when their green cards expired, “while
not making similar requests to U.S. citizen workers when their documents
expired.”
It was not clear from the press
release what “documents” a U.S. citizen would have that could expire and need
to be re-verified. WND called and emailed the DOJ press office Wednesday and
did not get a return call.
The investigation also concluded
that Panda Express “routinely required other non-U.S. citizen workers to
produce immigration documents to reverify their ongoing work authorization
despite evidence they had already provided sufficient documentation.”
The anti-discrimination provision of
the INA prohibits such requests for documents when based on an employee’s
citizenship status or national origin, according to the DOJ release.
Under the settlement, Panda Express
will pay a civil penalty of $400,000 to the United States, establish a $200,000
back-pay fund to compensate workers who lost wages due to the company’s
practices, train its human resources personnel on the requirements of the INA’s
anti-discrimination provision, and be subject to departmental monitoring and
reporting requirements.
“Employers should ensure that their
reverification practices comply with laws that protect workers against
discrimination,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Tom Wheeler of the
DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.
Essentially, Panda Express was being
“too careful” in its quest to make sure it did not employ illegal aliens, said
Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration
Studies in Washington.
Just as the Obama Justice Department
went after municipalities that rejected mosque projects, it similarly
threatened and bullied employers who were insistent upon making sure they did
not hire illegals.
“Yes, believe it or not, that’s
exactly what was happening,” Vaughan told WND. “It’s important to combat
discriminatory practices, but the Obama administration used this office to
intimidate employers and to try to scare them off asking too many questions of
workers that might lead to discovery of illegal unauthorized workers trying to
thwart the screening process.”
Vaughn said it was the Obama
administration’s “idea of worksite enforcement – going after employers trying
to do the right thing, instead of employers who routinely and flagrantly were hiring
illegal workers.”
“I expect that going forward, the
Trump administration will restore this office to its useful purpose of
protecting Americans as well as legal immigrants from discriminatory hiring
practices,” she said. “That should be the top priority of this office.”
The division’s Immigrant and
Employee Rights Section (IER), formerly known as the Office of Special Counsel
for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices, is responsible for
enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA. The statute prohibits,
among other things, citizenship, immigration status and national origin
discrimination in hiring, firing, or recruitment or referral for a fee; unfair
documentary practices; retaliation; and intimidation.
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