In recent years, New York has bulked up its laws opposing discrimination based on the target’s immigration status or perceived immigration status. Today, discriminatory employment practices can include things like using immigration status-oriented words or phrases as insults or slurs, or threatening workers with immigration enforcement actions. If you’re someone who has experienced this sort of mistreatment at work, you may have a winning case under the New York State Human Rights Law, the NYCHRL, or both, so don’t delay in reaching out to an experienced New York immigration status discrimination lawyer to discuss your options.
In 2019, New York City declared that any employer that uses the terms “illegal aliens” and “illegals” in a way designed to “demean, humiliate, or offend a person or persons in the workplace” has engaged in employment discrimination in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law. Additionally, an employer’s threats to “call federal immigration authorities” or have the worker deported can constitute unlawful harassment under the NYCHRL when “motivated, in whole or in part, by animus related to the employee’s actual or perceived immigration status and/or national origin.” Those, of course, are not the only ways employers can run afoul of the law’s prohibitions against immigration status discrimination.
As an example, there’s this case from late November, where a Manhattan-based luxury confectioner most famous for its mille crepe cakes agreed to a settlement that ended the U.S. Justice Department’s immigration discrimination case against the employer. The DOJ accused the confectioner of requiring certain employment candidates to go above and beyond what the law requires in terms of documenting their eligibility to work.