Justice Department Reaches Settlement with New York Manufacturer to Resolve Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices

The Justice Department announced today that it reached a settlement agreement with R-Tronics LLC, a company based in Rome, N.Y., which manufactures custom and prototype cables, wire harnesses and electro-mechanical assemblies. The agreement resolves allegations that the company violated the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by limiting its hiring practices to U.S. citizens.

According to the department’s investigation, R-Tronics restricted employment to U.S. citizens, despite the fact that no law, regulation, executive order or government contract required the limitation. Although R-Tronics is a federal contractor subject to the International Traffic and Arms Regulations (ITAR), ITAR does not require or permit employers to limit job applicants to U.S. citizens. The INA’s anti-discrimination provision only allows such hiring restrictions when necessary to comply with a law, regulation, executive order or government contract.

Under the terms of the agreement, R-Tronics will terminate its unwarranted citizenship requirement for employment, modify its employment eligibility verification policies and procedures to reflect the INA’s protections, train its human resources staff about the employer’s responsibilities to avoid discrimination in the employment eligibility verification process, and be subject to reporting and compliance monitoring by the department for three years. The case settled prior to the Justice Department filing a complaint in this matter.

“ Employers must give all eligible candidates the equal opportunity to compete for employment,” said Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to ensuring that employers do not discriminate against protected individuals based on citizenship status, but also to educating employers on the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The Office of Special Counsel for Immigration Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) is responsible for enforcing the anti-discrimination provision of the INA.   For more information about protections against employment discrimination under the immigration laws, call the OSC’s worker hotline at 1-800-255-7688 (1-800-237-2525, TDD for hearing impaired), call the OSC’s employer hotline at 1-800-255-8155 (1-800-362-2735, TDD for hearing impaired), sign up for a no-cost webinar at www.justice.gov/about/osc/webinars.php , email osccrt@usdoj.gov or visit the website at www.justice.gov/crt/about/osc .