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by bgorman 1290 days ago
Doesn't this violate anti-discrimination laws? It seems like this discriminates against US citizens (discrimination by national origin).
10 comments

While US citizens can take their time and find another job while also receive unemployment benefits, someone on H1 visa has to technically leave the country as soon as possible.A laid off person on H1 cannot remain unemployed and continue to remain in the country. This is particularly hard on those with families, many living in this country for 10+ years, with school going kids. Many have been waiting for years to get a green card. This is a very kind gesture by the employer. Hope more employers do this.
How is it discrimination if they set the termination date for ALL employees to March 1, 2023?
Discrimination laws apply to protected classes. Visa holders are not a protected class.
By that logic is the existence of visa programs discrimination by national origin?
No, because the employer must prove their are no legal residents in the US that are eligible for the job.
This is a common myth but is not true for H-1B visas. It is true for EB2 and EB3 green cards, however.
As part of the LCA the employer must attest there is no strike or lockout, that the salary of similarly employed workers is not affected, & that the job application must be provided to workers already at the company.

So no, you can't just threaten to replace all your employees with H1-B visa holders.

Right, but that's not "their [sic] are no legal residents in the US that are eligible for the job". That's the PERM process.
Damn you are dense. It is on the employer to prove they are not affecting the wages of US legal residents as part of the LCA.

Bringing in foreign labor to a market implicitly lowers the wages of those workers. That is how markets work. Thus, there must be absolutely 0 residents already capable of performing the job. Otherwise the LCA is fraudulent. The only other possibility would be the employer is bringing in foreign labor to pay them a premium over legal residents. Which obviously no one does.

No.

What is discrimination by national origin is the fact that employment-based green cards have a quota by country of birth, without any adjustment for the country's population. However, the American legal system accepts that kind of discrimination by national origin, because it doesn't fall under the Civil Rights Act.

How? You get severance until March the only difference between US and non-US employees is the technically the date that employment ends. Everyone is paid through March anyway.
It doesn't mean they are paid until then... it just says your last day as an employee is that date, giving them time to look for other jobs. Don't confuse it with being paid to do nothing because that isn't the case.
It appears this has been done for all employees. So no in this case.
It doesn't say the end date is only for visa holders. It's just saying that visa holders will particularly benefit from it.
That question reminds me of those equality vs equity pictures. I'm not sure I even agree with those definitions, but it's a commonly spread explanation. https://www.marinhhs.org/sites/default/files/boards/general/...

So one question is then, which view does a court take?

This "benefit" is available to everyone laid off. It's not discriminatory just because some people don't need it. Otherwise offering free bicycle storage would be discriminatory to people who bus to work, and offering free bus passes would be discriminatory to cyclists.
We would be well served to be a little more discriminatory against cyclists.
Notably, DoorDash is providing the benefit equally to all fired employees [0].

[0] At least those working within the US.

I guess they should also kick US citizen employees out of the country by March 1?