Home > Our Blog > Justice Department Files Suit Against Arizona Colleges for Discrimination Against Non-Citizens

Blog Post

Justice Department Files Suit Against Arizona Colleges for Discrimination Against Non-Citizens

Posted August 31, 2010 by Patrick Young, Esq.
Categories: Hate Watch

Yesterday the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Arizona public colleges for discrimination against non-citizens in employment.

Under United States law, every new hire has to produce documentation of eligibility to work in the United States. Anyone who has been hired over the last 23 years knows that employers have you fill out an I-9 form and that you have to produce documents from a menu of possibilities listed on the form.

The public colleges in Arizona appear to have gotten so rattled by the state’s anti-immigrant agitation, that in 2008 they adopted illegal policies in which they began rejecting many types of legal work authorization from non-citizens legally living in the United States.

Now you might think that all a non-citizen who can work here legally needs to show is her “green card.” But many people here legally don’t have green cards. Instead they have stamps from the Department of Homeland Security in their passports, or other documentation, authorizing them to work here.

Arizona didn’t want to accept these forms of documentation, which violated US immigration laws.

Which makes Arizona “illegal,” I suppose.

What this really shows is the danger of putting immigration enforcement in the hands of untrained Arizona public officials influenced by the state government’s demonstrated animus towards the foreign born.

Tags : arizona

Permalink Comments