Understanding the INA's Anti-Discrimination Provision

Understanding the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Anti-Discrimination Provision
Employer Fact Sheet
Understanding the Immigration and
Nationality Act’s Anti-Discrimination
Provision
This fact sheet explains prohibited discrimination under the
Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision.
This law prohibits employers from discriminating against workers who have permission
to work in the United States based on their citizenship status or national origin. This law
is found at 8 U.S.C. § 1324b.
Immigrant and Employee Rights Section
justice.gov/ier
What’s in this Document
• 	Citizenship Status Discrimination
• 	National Origin Discrimination
• 	Unfair Documentary Practices
o 	Form I-9 Process
o 	E-Verify
• 	Retaliation/Intimidation
Contact
For questions about this fact sheet,
call the Civil Rights Division’s
Immigrant and Employee Rights
Section at
1-800-255-7688

Understanding the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Anti-Discrimination Provision
Citizenship Status
Discrimination
Employers generally can’t treat people differently in
hiring, firing, recruitment, or referral for a fee because of
National Origin
Discrimination
their citizenship status.
Citizenship status includes a person’s current or prior
immigration status.
U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals, workers granted asylum or
refugee status, and recent lawful permanent residents are
protected from citizenship status discrimination under the
Immigration and Nationality Act.
For example, an employer cannot have a policy of only
hiring U.S. citizens unless a law, regulation, government
contract, or executive order requires the employer to
limit the specific position to U.S. citizens.
An employer that believes a certain position requires it to
hire someone with a specific citizenship or immigration
status should carefully review the legal support for the
requirement. This situation is rare and does not apply to
most jobs.
Employers are not allowed to treat people differently in
hiring, firing, recruitment, or referral for a fee because of
their place of birth, first language, accent, or other
national origin indicator.
The Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits national origin
discrimination against any worker with permission to work in
the United States.
Another law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, also prohibits
national origin discrimination against all workers, regardless
of their work-authorization status.
The Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights
Section (IER) investigates national origin discrimination
claims against employers with four to 14 employees. The
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
investigates national origin discrimination claims against
employers with 15 or more employees.
Unfair Documentary
Practices
Employers are not allowed to request more or different
documents than are required by law to verify a worker’s
2

Understanding the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Anti-Discrimination Provision
permission to work in the United States. Employers
must not reject reasonably genuine-looking documents
or specify certain documents over others based on a
worker’s citizenship, immigration status, or national
origin.
This type of discrimination typically occurs in the Form I-9
and E-Verify processes, which are discussed in more detail
below.
Form I-9 Process 	Employers verify workers’ permission to work in the United
States by completing the Form I-9. During the Form I-9
process, a worker must show documentation establishing
their identity and permission to work in the United States.
You can get more information on Form I-9 document
requirements by contacting IER or U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services (USCIS).
Workers have the right to choose which acceptable
documentation to show during this process.
An employer can’t, based on a worker’s citizenship,
immigration status, or national origin, request more or
different documents than are required to establish a worker’s
identity and permission to work in the United States.
Employers also can’t require a worker to show specific
documents or reject documents that appear to be reasonably
genuine and relate to the worker, based on citizenship
status, immigration status, or national origin.
For example, many workers—including non-U.S. citizens—
have a driver’s license and unrestricted Social Security
card and may choose to present those documents. In that
situation, employers can’t ask for other documents to verify
work authorization.
Similarly, employers can’t require non-U.S. citizens to
produce “green cards” or U.S. citizens who appear “foreign”
to produce birth certificates or U.S. passports.
E-Verify 	E-Verify is a U.S. Department of Homeland Security program
that verifies a worker’s permission to work electronically,
using information from the Form I-9. 3

Understanding the Immigration and Nationality Act’s Anti-Discrimination Provision
Sometimes, E-Verify does not verify a worker’s permission to
work right away and issues a Tentative Nonconfirmation
(also known as a mismatch).
If a worker decides to take action to resolve a mismatch,
E-Verify prohibits employers from firing, delaying the
employment of, or taking any other negative action
against the worker because of the pending mismatch.
More information is in the E-Verify Memorandum of
Understanding.
In addition, an employer that rejects a worker’s
documentation or asks a worker who gets a mismatch to
provide additional documentation based on the worker’s
citizenship, immigration status, or national origin might be
committing unlawful discrimination.
Retaliation/Intimidation 	People who file charges with IER, cooperate with an IER
investigation, oppose what they reasonably believe are
violations of the law that IER enforces, or otherwise assert
their own or others’ rights under the Immigration and
Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision are protected
from intimidation, threats, coercion, and retaliation.
Updated March 2024
Contact
• 	Call the Worker Hotline at
• 	For people with hearing disabilities 1-800-237-2515
• 	Calls can be anonymous.
• 	Free language services are available.
• 	To learn more, visit
1-800-255-7688
justice.gov/ier
Civil Rights Division, Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER)