Justice Department lawsuit claims SpaceX refused to hire refugees and asylum seekers

The U.S. Department of Justice sued SpaceX on Thursday, claiming that its hiring policies discriminated against refugees and asylum seekers. 

The DOJ launched an investigation against Elon Musk’s space company in June 2020, after its Immigrant and Employee Rights Section received a complaint of employment discrimination from a non-U.S. citizen. 

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. 

Clarke added that “SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company.”

In job postings and listings between September 2018 and May 2022, SpaceX wrongly claimed that it could only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents under federal regulations known as “export control laws,” the lawsuit claims. 

However, such laws do not impose such hiring restrictions. 

Export control laws only bar foreign persons from being given access to export-controlled items without approval from the U.S., but that does not include U.S. citizens, residents, refugees, and asylum seekers. 

In 2020, Musk shared a tweet in which he wrote that the “U.S. requires at least a green card” to be hired at SpaceX because rockets were considered “advanced weapons and technology.”

Immigrants “had virtually no chance of being fairly considered or hired for a job at SpaceX,” the lawsuit states.

Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that during that period the company hired around 10,000 new employees, only one of which was an asylee. The hire came four months after the DOJ notified SpaceX of its investigation. 

By suing the company, the DOJ seeks to get “fair consideration and back pay for asylees and refugees who were deterred or denied employment at SpaceX due to the alleged discrimination.”