Here at the Law Office of Vincent Miletti, Esq. and the home of the #UnusuallyMotivated movement, we take pride as a resilient and dependable legal services firm, providing such services in both a traditional and online, web-based environment. With mastered specialization in areas such as Employment and Labor Law, Intellectual Property (IP) (trademark, copyright, patent), Entertainment Law, and e-Commerce (Supply Chain, Distribution, Fulfillment, Standard Legal & Regulatory), we provide a range of legal services including, but not limited to traditional legal representation (litigation, mediation, arbitration, opinion letters and advisory), non-litigated business legal representation and legal counsel, and unique, online legal services such as smart forms, mobile training, legal marketing and development.

Still, here at Miletti Law®, we feel obligated to enlighten, educate, and create awareness, free of charge, about how these issues and many others affect our unusually motivated® readers and/or their businesses. Accordingly, to achieve this goal, we have committed ourselves to creating authoritative, trustworthy, & distinctive content. Usually, this content is featured as videos posted on our YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtvUryqkkMAJLwrLu2BBt6w and blogs that are published on our website WWW.MILETTILAW.COM. With that, the ball is in your court and you have an effortless obligation to subscribe to the channel and sign up for the Newsletter on the website, which encompasses the best way to ensure that you stay in the loop and feel the positive impact of the knowledge bombs that we drop here!

As the authoritative force in Employment Law, it only seemed right to introduce one of the many upcoming series in which we introduce a variety of topics that looks to educate and deliver in a manner that only Miletti Law® can. To that end, this blog is Part III of our series on “EEO’s Provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA of 1986).” As a legal firm specializing in, among other legal areas, Employment and Labor Law, we have been creating a diverse but focused range of content to educate, train, keep you informed, and ensure that you, our unusually motivated® readers, stay ahead of the game in matters related to the labor law. Again, this is the primary reason we have dedicated a good percentage of our blogs to looking at every nook and cranny of Employment and Labor Law.

In Part III and our blog on employer coverage of the IRCA, we mentioned that while it aims to fill in several gaps left by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) provisions of IRCA apply to all employers with at least four employees. We also asserted that, however, employers must understand that there is no overlap between Title VII and IRCA. Nonetheless, it is also crucial to note that as codified by 8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(2)(B), since Title VII’s provisions apply to employers with fifteen or more employees, the prohibition of IRCA against discrimination based on national origin is only applicable to employers with between four and fifteen employees.

To continue with this discussion, we have, in this blog and Part IV of the series, hammered on “Conduct Prohibited by Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA),” another key issue related to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and its Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) provisions.

Conduct Prohibited by Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA)

As codified under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1324b(a)(1), (5), there are several types of discriminatory employment practices prohibited by IRCA. These practices include retaliation against any individual who takes part in any IRCA investigation or complains about a potential IRCA violation, discrimination in firing or hiring based on national origin for employers with between four and fifteen employees, and discrimination in firing or hiring based on the status of an individual’s citizenship.

It is worth noting that since it also specifically prohibits employer coercion, threats, and intimidation in addition to retaliation resulting in an adverse employment action such as docking of pay, failure to hire, suspension, or termination), as codified under 8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(5), the provision of retaliation under IRCA is broader. Notably, this is a key difference between retaliation provisions under Title VII and those under IRCA.

Furthermore, it is important to understand that employers are prohibited from preferring or acquiring certain types of documents that are used to complete Forms I-9 by IRCA. Employers are required by IRCA to accept documents that otherwise satisfy the I-9 Form requirements and as long as the documents produced by employees appear genuine on the face. For example, as codified under 8 U.S.C. § 1324b(a)(6), employers are not permitted to ask potential employees or employees to provide passport copies in place of other documents that meet Form I-9’s requirements. Finally, as codified under 8 U.S.C. §1324b(a)(2)(C), citizenship preferences by employers that are needed to comply with government contracts, executive orders, regulations, or local, state, or federal law are not prohibited by IRCA.

In Part V of this series, we will move the discussion forward by hammering on “Enforcement & Statute of Limitations of IRCA” as another key issue related to the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) and its Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) provisions.

In the meantime, stay tuned for more legal guidance, training, and education. In the interim, if there are any questions or comments, please let us know at the Contact Us page!

Always rising above the bar,

Isaac T.,

Legal Writer & Author.