Great Dane LLC, a privately held trailer manufacturer, has settled with the Department of Justice over claims that the company put job applicants who were in the U.S. legally but were not U.S. citizens through an excessive documentation process.
The fine levied by the Department of Justice calls for Great Dane to pay $218,000 for violations the DOJ found Great Dane had committed. In a prepared statement, the DOJ said a separate fund with that amount will be set up “to compensate victims of the company’s discriminatory practices, including those whom it failed to hire or who lost work because they could not comply with the company’s discriminatory document demands.”
The actions by Great Dane that were the target of the investigation affected its dealings with applicants who were lawful permanent residents.
Green card holders targeted
“Lawful permanent residents do not have to show a Permanent Resident Card (or ‘green card’) or prove their immigration status when demonstrating their permission to work,” the DOJ said in its statement.
A spokesman for Great Dane, reached by FreightWaves, said the company would have no comment on the DOJ action.
The Justice Department cited provisions in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) that it said Great Dane had violated. It also rolled out a new “fact sheet” about the rights that a lawful permanent resident has under the INA.
“For example, the department determined that even though the worker who filed the initial complaint provided sufficient information and documents to prove his permission to work — his state ID and unrestricted Social Security card — the company nevertheless wanted him to provide additional information from a Permanent Resident Card,” the DOJ said. “The department determined that Great Dane failed to hire non-U.S. citizens who were unable to comply with the company’s unnecessary requests.”
The DOJ added, “Employers cannot limit the valid documentation that a lawful permanent resident may show when verifying their ability to work.”
According to the settlement document provided by the DOJ in its announcement, the investigation of Great Dane goes back to 2022. The name of the “charging party” who brought concerns to the attention of DOJ is redacted in the document.
According to that settlement document, Great Dane had asked non-U.S. citizens to fill out form I-9 or the E-Verify process, which “unnecessarily (reverifies) the Permanent Resident Card or ‘List B’ identification documents that lawful permanent residents provided.”
Employment offers weren’t tendered
It also said Great Dane, “until at least October 1, 2023,” failed to hire “certain non-U.S. citizens who were unable to comply with Respondent’s unnecessary document requests,” which the DOJ said is a violation of federal law.
The DOJ, in the settlement document, said the agreement with Great Dane does not constitute an admission by the trailer manufacturer that it had engaged in “any unlawful acts.”
The agreement also requires Great Dane to initiate training on the anti-discrimination requirements of the INA, revise employment policies and “be subject to departmental monitoring and reporting requirements.”
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