More political weaponization: DOJ files lawsuit against Musk’s SpaceX alleging hiring discrimination against refugees

Once upon a time farmers and business owners would be punished for hiring illegal immigrants,  and their workers would be rounded up by U.S. Immigration and Customs  Enforcement (ICE) and exported out of the United States. In Biden’s America, however, owners are now being legally prosecuted for not hiring illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s rocket company for SpaceX on Thursday, alleging discrimination against asylum recipients and refugees in hiring.

“The lawsuit alleges that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” the Justice Department said in a statement.

The lawsuit by the DOJ also cited online posts from Musk as examples of “discriminatory public statements.” An examples includes a post Elon Musk wrote on what was then Twitter in June of 2020 to his 36 million followers that said: “U.S. law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are advanced weapons technology.”

However, In a response post on what is now X, SpaceX CEO Musk said the company “was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense.” Musk described the Justice Department lawsuit against SpaceX as “weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s civil rights division said a DOJ investigation found that SpaceX “failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law”.

The lawsuit alleges that in job postings and public statements over several years, SpaceX “wrongly” claimed that under federal regulations known as export control laws, SpaceX could hire only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as “green card holders,” the Justice Department said.

The Justice Department says the United States seeks fair consideration and back pay for asylum recipients and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX due to the alleged discrimination. Additionally, the lawsuit also “seeks civil penalties in an amount to be determined by court and policy changes to ensure SpaceX complies with the federal non-discrimination mandate going forward” reports Reuters.