The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) for discriminating against asylees and refugees in hiring. The lawsuit alleges that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
Asylees was not a word I was familiar with until today
It’s a busy day for xenophobic billionaires!
Hang on, ain’t it a federal law that if you are employed govt aerospace program (which spacex is part of cause its NASA funded contractor) that only American born people can work for them ? Came up in the past and they responded quoting that the Govt wont let them.
From the link:
In job postings and public statements over several years, SpaceX wrongly claimed that under federal regulations known as “export control laws,” SpaceX could hire only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as “green card holders.” Export control laws impose no such hiring restrictions. Moreover, asylees’ and refugees’ permission to live and work in the United States does not expire, and they stand on equal footing with U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents under export control laws. Under these laws, companies like SpaceX can hire asylees and refugees for the same positions they would hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. And once hired, asylees and refugees can access export-controlled information and materials without additional government approval, just like U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents.
So SpaceX blatantly lied hoping no-one else would notice.
Lied or didn’t bother to fully read the law.
It’s most likely incompetence…
uuuuuhhhh, TIL Must be a new thing cause i do remember is 100% was a thing to protect aerospace secrets.
It’s easy to misinterpret the law because it states you can only hire U.S. Persons without requiring approval. And naturally people would assume U.S. Persons means citizens. But the term also includes permanent residents, asylees, and refugees.
So SpaceX can’t hire immigrants on a temporary visa without a lot of effort. But refugees and asylees are explicitly allowed to work at such companies.
It’s not new. Refugees and people with asylum are considered US persons, it’s literally written into the law (ITAR) protecting aerospace secrets.
Wow so every doco i have read/watched on the space race has interpreted the law incorrectly.
It’s not an interpretation. It’s defined in relatively simple to understand English.
U.S. Person - a natural person who is a lawful permanent resident as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20) or who is a protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
Relevant portion of 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3):
[A protected person] is an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence, is granted the status of an alien lawfully admitted for temporary residence under section 1160(a) or 1255a(a)(1) of this title, is admitted as a refugee under section 1157 of this title, or is granted asylum under section 1158 of this title;
This is literally from the Department of Justice, so I’m assuming they know the laws about these things.
I did some reading up on this as it’s fairly interesting and I haven’t heard about this before. I found this article and it sounds like it’s less than $200k fine and two years monitoring. If I had to guess they might have used that as insurance against leaks of their innovative technology, drone ships and return to pad rockets, satellite technology etc. At least that’s what I hope as I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Also potential sabotage. They also have government contracts with military I’m sure. Maybe it’s easier to risk a lawsuit for a few years of mitigating those risks. Just something to think about.
If it was most other business owners, I’d probably be a lot more likely to agree with your take regarding potentially doing it for the right reasons (protecting against espionage, sabotage, etc.). Then there is the fact that these are asylees/refugees, which I’d assume wouldn’t be hired in a position where espionage, sabotage, etc., are a possibility. Probably more like menial type jobs, away from “innovative technology” and “potential sabotage” positions.
And then there is the following claims from the JD link:
“SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act” and;
“SpaceX wrongly claimed that under federal regulations known as export control laws, SpaceX could hire only U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, sometimes referred to as green card holders. Export control laws impose no such hiring restrictions.”
I’m not an attorney, but it seems like all they had to do is not discourage them, at the least, and at the most, just interview but not hire them. Oh, and keep their mouth shut about things they aren’t knowledgeable about the law.
My guess is this is an example of Hanlon’s Razor. A disconnect between their lawyers and their HR staff or hiring managers as to their specific obligations under ITAR would easily explain all of this.
I doubt there was even a specific refugee or asylee actually involved: a poorly-worded job posting would justify this complaint.
a·sy·lee
/əˌsīˈlē/
noun
plural noun: asylees
a person who is seeking or has been granted political asylum.
