Sept. 20 (UPI) — SpaceX countersued the Justice Department in a bid to block a lawsuit alleging employment discrimination at the company.
The Space X countersuit filed Friday claimed the Justice Department’s administrative process is itself unconstitutional while denying the discrimination allegations.
“SpaceX has not engaged in any practice or pattern of discriminating against anyone, including asylees or refugees. To the contrary, SpaceX wants to hire the very best candidates for every job regardless of their citizenship status, and in fact has hired hundreds of non-citizens,” SpaceX said.
By targeting Attorney General Merrick Garland and the administrative law judge and hearing officer in the case, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is using litigation to attack the process being used by the Justice Department to enforce anti-hiring discrimination rather than mounting a defense of its hiring practices.
The SpaceX counter-suit asks the court to suspend the proceedings against the company and dismiss the case.
The DOJ’s suit filed in August said Space X discouraged refugees and people seeking political asylum from applying for jobs and refused to hire or consider asylees and refugees based on their citizenship status, illegal under federal immigration laws, according to the DOJ.
“SpaceX’s discriminatory hiring practices were routine, widespread, and longstanding, and harmed asylees and refugees. In online postings and statements by SpaceX’s CEO and other SpaceX officials and recruiters, SpaceX discouraged asylees and refugees from applying to the company by wrongly stating that SpaceX can only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents,” the Justice Department lawsuit stated.
According to the Justice Department, SpaceX job postings and statements wrongly claimed that under federal export control laws SpaceX could only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident 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,” the Department of Justice said.
