Navajo Express, DOJ reach settlement over immigration discrimination dispute

The Department of Justice has reached a settlement with Denver-based Navajo Express over an immigration-related discrimination dispute.

According to a Justice Department news release, the settlement resolves the department’s determination that Navajo Express violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by discriminating against non-U.S. citizen workers when checking their permission to work in the United States.

Navajo Express will pay more than $40,000 in civil penalties to the United States, train staff on the act’s anti-discrimination provision, review and revise its employment policies, and be subject to departmental monitoring for a two-year period, according to the settlement.

A non-U.S. citizen had complained that Navajo Express refused to accept valid documentation proving his permission to work and demanded a different document from him. The Justice Department determined Navajo Express routinely required lawful permanent residents to show their permanent resident cards (known as “green cards”) to prove their permission to work, even when they had already presented other valid documentation.

Navajo Express also had a policy of illegally requiring permanent residents to provide new permanent resident cards when their old permanent resident cards expired, even though such documentation is unnecessary.

“When employers reject workers’ valid documentation proving their permission to work and demand other types of documentation, they construct unnecessary hurdles that can mean the difference between a worker getting a job or not,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to hold employers accountable for discriminating against workers because of citizenship, immigration status or national origin.”

Federal law allows all workers to choose which valid, legally acceptable documentation to present to demonstrate their identity and permission to work, regardless of citizenship, immigration status or national origin. The Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision prohibits employers from asking for specific documents because of a worker’s citizenship, immigration status or national origin. LL