Protecting Your Right to Work

Protecting Your Right to Work
Worker Fact Sheet
Protecting Your Right to Work
The Immigration and Nationality Act prohibits employers from
discriminating against work-authorized individuals based on their
citizenship, immigration status, or national origin.
The Immigrant and Employee Rights Section (IER) of the U.S. Department of Justice’s
Civil Rights Division enforces this law, found at 8 U.S.C. § 1324b.
Under the law that IER enforces, employers generally aren’t allowed to:
• 	refuse to hire you
• 	fire you
• 	treat you differently in the process of verifying your permission to work in the
United States
based on your citizenship, immigration status, or national origin.
Call IER at 1-800-255-7688 if you believe you may have experienced discrimination.
Calls can be anonymous.
Examples of potential unlawful
discrimination in hiring
• The employer has a policy of only hiring U.S.
citizens without a legal requirement to do so.
• The employer refuses to hire workers granted
asylum or refugee status because of their
immigration status.
• The employer refuses to hire a qualified worker
based on the country the worker is from.
• The employer prefers workers with temporary
work visas over qualified and available workers
in the United States because of their
citizenship, immigration status, or national
origin.
Immigrant and Employee Rights Section
justice.gov/ier

Protecting Your Right to Work
Examples of potential unlawful
discrimination when verifying
permission to work
Under the law that IER enforces, when verifying
your permission to work, employers can’t ask
for more or different documents than
necessary, request specific documents, or
reject reasonably genuine-looking
documents, because of your citizenship,
immigration status, or national origin.
This type of discrimination generally happens
during the Form I-9 and E-Verify processes.
An employer might be discriminating in the Form
I-9 process if, based on a worker’s citizenship
status or national origin:
• 	The employer demands that certain workers
show “green cards” but allows other workers
to decide which documents to show.
• 	The employer asks certain workers for more
documents than needed to complete the
Form I-9.
• 	The employer rejects valid work authorization
documents from certain workers.
• 	The employer asks lawful permanent
residents who decided to show a Permanent
Resident Card for the Form I-9 to show more
documentation when their Permanent
Resident Card later expires.
• 	The employer refuses to hire certain workers
whose work authorization documents have a
future expiration date.
• 	The employer asks certain workers for work
authorization documents before offering
them a job.
Examples of potential
unlawful discrimination in the
E-Verify Process
E-Verify is a program some employers use to
confirm electronically that their employees have
permission to work in the United States. With some
exceptions, employers use this program only for
newly hired workers and are not allowed to use it
on job applicants.
An employer’s E-Verify use might violate the
law that IER enforces if the employer treats
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Protecting Your Right to Work
workers differently in the E-Verify process
based on their citizenship, immigration status,
or national origin.
An employer might be discriminating in its use of E-
Verify if, based on a worker’s citizenship,
immigration status, or national origin:
• 	The employer uses E-Verify to check only
some, but not all, new employees.
• 	The employer refuses to allow certain
workers with Tentative Nonconfirmations
(also known as mismatches) to work or
delays their start date while those
workers are correcting their mismatch.
• 	The employer asks certain workers to
check their own work authorization using
myE-Verify’s Self Check.
• 	The employer requests that certain
workers show specific documents for E-
Verify.
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)