SpaceX Gets Sued By The U.S. The Company Is Alleged For Discriminating Against Refugees And Asylum Patients In Recruitment. Here's All You Need To Know!

Much to the great disappointment of Elon Musk, the U.S. Justice Department filed a suit against SpaceX on Thursday, The suit alleged that the company discriminated against refugees and asylum recipients in its hiring process.

The Justice Department expressed that as per the lawsuit filed, SpaceX incessantly discouraged refugees and asylees from applying from at least September 2018 to May 2022. The lawsuit also alleged that the company abstained from considering or hiring them, all due to their citizenship status, thereby violating the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The allegations

SpaceX alleged that in its public statements and job postings, it wrongly claimed that as per the federal regulations called the export control laws, the company will be able to employ only lawful permanent residents and citizens of the United States. The company stated that it could hire only "green card holders".

  The Justice Department further indicated the online posts of Elon Musk that expressed "discriminatory public statements."

The lawsuit also referred to a post by X's CEO Elon Musk, posted in June 2020. The post stated that the U.S. needs at least a green card in order to get hired at SpaceX because rockets are advanced weapons technology.

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How did SpaceX react to it?

The reaction of Musk was obviously defensive at he stated that the lawsuit by the Justice Department against SpaceX is nothing but 'weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes."

The CEO of SpaceX expressed in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that SpaceX incessantly stated that hiring any non-permanent resident of the US would actually violate the international arms trafficking law, which would further be treated as a criminal offense.

Exactly.

SpaceX 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.

We couldn’t even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD!

This…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2023

Kristen Clarke, U.S. Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department's Division of Civil Rights stated that a DOJ investigation discovered that SpaceX could not fairly hire or consider asylees and refugees due to their citizenship status and bans their hiring no matter what the qualification, is actually a federal-law violation.

Clarke also stated that recruiters of SpaceX and high-level officials demonstrated active discouragement towards refugees and asylum recipients looking for job opportunities at SpaceX.

The Justice Department asserted that the U.S. is working for fair consideration, along with back pay for refugees and asylum recipients who were initially denied recruitment at SpaceX because of the alleged discrimination.

Furthermore, the lawsuit seeks civil penalties in court-determined amounts, along with policy changes that make sure that the company abides by the federal non-discrimination laws from now on.

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