Since the 2012 DACA policy, this is the third such case filed by Outten & Golden and MALDEF over the issue of companies that have allegedly denied employment opportunities to immigrants authorized to work in the U.S. opportunities. One case is pending against Wells Fargo & Co. that claims the bank denied qualified applicants, including college students, loans because of their immigration status. The case filed in a California federal court seeks class action status. Northwestern Mutual settled a case in New York court over claims the bank blocked a college graduate from an internship.
“The idea is to get them to stop these policies,” said Outten & Golden’s David Lopez, formerly a general counsel to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Immigration is a federal policy, a federal matter. These companies don’t have the right to decide they can ignore workers authorized by the federal government.”
Rodriguez, who graduated from Florida International University in 2014, said he had a nearly perfect grade point average, 3.96, and majored in finance with a minor in economics and accounting. He hoped to secure the internship with Ohio-based P&G to make connections or even land a full-time job with the company after graduation.
He did not get beyond the screening stage. He later said a recruiter told him his immigration status kept him from moving forward.
“I was incredibly disappointed that a company that is so innovative could be so short-sighted in its hiring practices,” Rodriguez, 34, said in an interview Monday. “It would have been a tremendous opportunity.”
He applied for the internship in September 2013 for the upcoming summer. The company’s hiring policy in general may be designed to weed out candidates, Rodriguez’s complaint alleged, since various job postings specifically say that candidates must “be a U.S. citizen of natural, refugee, asylee or lawful permanent resident.”
The lawsuit is seeking judgment that the company’s hiring practices are unlawful and for back pay and damages.
Obama announced in 2012 that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would no longer deport certain young immigrants under the DACA program. But the future of the program has come under question in the Trump administration. As a candidate, President Donald Trump promised to end the program. He has since shifted his stance.
“DACA recipients have been recognized across the political spectrum as worthy of protection; these young people are a committed, U.S.-educated, and well-qualified cohort of our nation’s current and future workforce,” said Thomas Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, in a statement. “Denying them employment is not only unlawful, it is counterproductive policy for any employer, especially a huge seller of consumer goods like the defendant here.”
