Elon Musk’s area exploration agency SpaceX is underneath hearth after the U.S. Division of Justice (DOJ) introduced it was suing the corporate for discrimination. The agency has been accused of solely hiring “U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents from September 2018 to September 2020” after claiming that authorities laws meant that it couldn’t appoint asylum seekers and refugees to roles on the firm.

In an announcement asserting {that a} case was being made towards SpaceX, the DOJ stated that for “not less than” 4 years between 2018 and 2022, SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from making use of.” For 2 of these years, it additionally solely supplied roles to U.S. residents and everlasting residents.

With a purpose to do that, job postings listed by SpaceX incorrectly declare that “export management legal guidelines” meant that the corporate was solely in a position to rent solely U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents. Nonetheless, the DOJ says that these legal guidelines “impose no such hiring restrictions.” In an announcement, the division defined:

Furthermore, asylees’ and refugees’ permission to stay and work in the US doesn’t expire, and so they stand on equal footing with U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents underneath export management legal guidelines. Below these legal guidelines, corporations like SpaceX can rent asylees and refugees for a similar positions they’d rent U.S. residents and lawful everlasting residents.

“Our investigation additionally discovered that SpaceX recruiters and high-level officers took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from in search of work alternatives on the firm,” defined assistant lawyer basic Kristen Clarke of the Justice Division’s civil rights division.

“Asylees and refugees have overcome many obstacles of their lives, and illegal employment discrimination based mostly on their citizenship standing shouldn’t be one in every of them. By means of this lawsuit we’ll maintain SpaceX accountable for its unlawful employment practices and search aid that permits asylees and refugees to pretty compete for job alternatives and contribute their abilities to SpaceX’s workforce.”

It’s secure to say that the case towards the corporate has not been taken nicely by SpaceX boss Elon Musk. The SpaceX CEO took to Twitter X to argue that he had been advised that hiring an asylee or refugee “would violate worldwide arms trafficking regulation.” Including that it was “one other case of weaponization of the DOJ for political functions.”

Nonetheless, the DOJ defined that whereas SpaceX should adjust to export management legal guidelines such because the Worldwide Site visitors in Arms Rules, nothing in these guidelines states that an asylee or refugee can’t work on the firm. In truth, it says that the legal guidelines “do not require SpaceX to deal with asylees and refugees in another way than U.S. residents or inexperienced card holders.”

The case is now in search of “truthful consideration and again pay for asylum recipients and refugees who have been deterred or denied employment” on the firm in recent times, in line with Reuters. The DOJ lawsuit additionally seeks civil penalties to make sure that discrimination at SpaceX doesn’t proceed.