Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, EEOC NEWS—Agency announces ‘Discrimination Against American Workers Is Against The Law’ technical assistance document, updates website, (Nov 20, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

“Nothing justifies illegal national origin discrimination—whether rooted in cost of labor, customer preferences, or stereotypes.”

Yesterday afternoon the EEOC announced that it has created “new and updated educational materials” intended to “reaffirm” Chair Andrea Lucas’s “commitment to advancing robust enforcement and awareness around national origin discrimination and Anti-American bias.” Specifically, the agency has issued a new single-page technical assistance document, “Discrimination Against American Workers Is Against The Law,” and it has updated its national origin discrimination landing page to include information on “what unlawful national origin discrimination can look like in the workplace and how individuals can act if they believe their rights have been violated.”

Bias against American workers. “The EEOC is here to protect all workers from unlawful national origin discrimination—including American workers,” Lucas said. “Unlawful bias against American workers, in violation of Title VII, is a large-scale problem in multiple industries nationwide. Many employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, or non-immigrant guest workers (guest worker visa holders) over American workers—in direct violation of federal employment law. The EEOC is committed to ensuring employers and workers better understand the even-handed protections provided to all workers by Title VII’s prohibition against national origin discrimination.”

Lucas added, “Nothing justifies illegal national origin discrimination—whether rooted in cost of labor, customer preferences, or stereotypes.”

New technical assistance. Among other things, the technical assistance document provides examples of “considerations” that “do not excuse an employer’s decision to hire foreign workers over American workers.” Those include things such as “[c]ustomer or client preference;” “lower cost of labor (whether due to “under the table” payment, or abuse of certain visa-holder wage requirement rules);” and “[b]eliefs that workers from one or more national origin groups are “more productive” or possess a better work ethic than another national origin group.”

It also provides examples of “discriminatory job advertisements,” such as “ads that say the employer prefers or requires applicants from a particular country or with a particular visa status (for example, “H-1B preferred” or “H-1B only”). For disparate treatment, it provides examples of evidence related to firing and hiring, such as evidence that a company is “terminating American workers who are on the “bench” between job assignments at a much higher rate than employees who are visa guest workers” or that an employer is “making it more difficult for applicants from one national origin to apply for positions (for example, subjecting U.S. workers to more laborious application methods than H-1B visa holders during the PERM labor certification process).”

The national origin discrimination landing page on the website now includes similar information.

News: AgencyNews NationalOrigin Discrimination Discharge