Migliaccio & Rathod LLP is investigating potential claims against General Motors (GM) following a Department of Justice (DOJ) settlement related to GM’s alleged discrimination against non-citizens in hiring practices. The DOJ’s case arose from GM’s misapplication of the term “US persons,” as defined and dictated by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) in relation to employees federally allowed to access export-controlled items without explicit governmental authorization. Despite the fact that these regulations broadly allow “US persons,” including citizens, nationals, lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees to take on roles which require contact with export-controlled items, non-citizen applicants to GM’s operations of this type claim to have been purposefully and routinely excluded as eligible potential employees. Moreover, non-citizens who fall outside of this definition of “US persons” need not be excluded from eligibility, they simply may require authorization from the State Department or the Commerce Department to access the export-controlled items at the center of this issue.
Non-citizen applicants who otherwise qualified for the position, including being considered “US persons,” were, per GM’s hiring policies and strategies, made to traverse the company’s “permission to work” requirements and otherwise asked to jump through unnecessary hoops by providing additional documentation of residency and work permits which fall outside of the scope of what the company truly needed to determine employment eligibility based on ITAR and EAR regulations. Accordingly, Migliaccio & Rathod LLP celebrates the DOJ’s decision to penalize GM and require policy and training shifts for hiring personnel, but also believes that GM should be held accountable directly to employees and prospective applicants who were victims of such discriminatory hiring procedures.
Are you a non-US citizen who applied to a GM unit involving export-controlled items and believe you were unnecessarily required to provide additional documentation regarding your identity and residency? If so, you may have been a victim of GM’s discriminatory hiring procedures and we would like to hear from you.
If so, please complete a contact form on this page, give us a call at (202) 470-3520 or send us an email at [email protected].
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The lawyers at Migliaccio & Rathod LLP have years of experience in class action litigation against large corporations, including in data breach and privacy litigation. More information about our current cases and investigations is available on our blog.