EEOC Says It’s Going After ‘Anti-American Bias’ in the Workplace

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it will enforce antidiscrimination laws against employers that “illegally prefer non-American workers.

In a Feb. 19 announcement EEOC’s Andrea Lucas, acting chair, said the commission is “putting employers and other covered entities on notice.”

“If you are part of the pipeline contributing to our immigration crisis or abusing our legal immigration system via illegal preferences against America workers, you must stop,” said Lucas, adding, “Many employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, and visa holders or other legal immigrants over American workers—in direct violation of federal employment law prohibiting national origin discrimination.”

Lucas called the bias against American workers “a large-scale problem in multiple industries.” Increased enforcement of the practice, which violates Title VII, will consequently reduce both demand for illegal workers and abuse of the legal immigration system. Staffing agencies will also be subject to enforcement.

The acting chair said the EEOC has investigated and prosecuted employers that have discriminated against American workers but the scope of the problem leaves “room for enhanced investigation and enforcement by the EEOC and in collaboration with other federal agencies.”

Lucas has been an EEOC commissioner since 2020. When she was chosen late last month to lead the EEOC, she said her priorities included protecting American workers from discrimination. Other priorities, based on what Lucas called “areas of recent under-enforcement,” included “defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.”

The Associated Press reported last week that the EEOC has filed to drop a handful of its own cases alleging gender-identity discrimination against workers in Illinois, Alabama, New York, and California.

In an annual performance report, the EEOC said it received about 88,530 new charges of discrimination in fiscal year 2024 (Oct. 1, 2023 – Sept. 30, 2024), reflecting an increase of 9.2% compared to FY 2023. The agency secured nearly $700 million for victims, it said. As part of its report, EEOC said it embarked on multiple outreach programs in support of executive orders issued by the previous presidential administration, including those regarding discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The report included links to the orders, which have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov website.