SpaceX accused of allegedly discriminating against refugees

The justice department has sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX over allegedly discrimination against refugees and asylees.

Elon Musk's aerospace company, SpaceX, is being sued by the Department of Justice for allegedly discriminating against refugees and those seeking asylum in the country.

The corporation allegedly violated the Immigration and Nationality Act between September 2018 and May 2022 by preventing asylees and refugees from applying to the company and refusing to recruit or consider them, according to the federal government's civil case, which was filed on Thursday.

The complaint alleges that Musk and SpaceX's leadership made false statements over and over again that the company could not hire anyone who was not a citizen of the United States or a holder of a green card because of "export control laws," but the Department of Justice countered that such limits are not enforced by those laws.

In May 2020, the Immigrant and Employee Rights Section of the Department of Justice began looking into SpaceX.

According to the lawsuit, the corporation recruits and hires for a variety of white-collar and blue-collar jobs, including those for welders, cooks, crane operators, baristas, dishwashers, IT specialists, software engineers, business analysts, rocket engineers, and marketing specialists.

According to data from SpaceX, the business hired 10,000 individuals between September 2018 and May 2022, but only one of them was an asylee. The lawsuit claimed that an asylee was hired four months after the Department of Justice's inquiry started.

The lawsuit requests that a federal judge order SpaceX to stop its practices, implement fair consideration procedures, and pay back wages to asylees who were denied employment at the company, in addition to imposing civil monetary penalties that the court will determine.