U.S. Workers Win Lost Wages After Being Discriminated Against in Favor of Foreigners by CO Corp.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s Department of Justice (DOJ) settled a case with a Colorado corporation that imported foreign workers instead of hiring Americans, winning the affected U.S. workers the money they had lost without those jobs.

In a settlement with Crop Production Services, Inc. out of Loveland, Colorado, American workers who were passed on by the corporation in favor of employing foreign workers will receive a settlement of $18,738.75 each, according to the DOJ.

The corporation must also pay civil penalties of $10,5000 to the U.S. while undergoing DOJ training on the anti-discrimination measures of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Crop Production, as a term of the settlement, will additionally have to comply with DOJ monitoring and reporting requirements.

“There will be zero tolerance for companies that violate the Immigration and Nationality Act by hiring foreign visa holders over U.S. workers,” Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore of the Civil Rights Division said in a statement.  “The Division’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative is committed to fighting discriminatory hiring practices that prevent qualified U.S. workers from obtaining jobs, and we commend Texas RioGrande Legal Aid for bringing this matter to our attention.”

As Breitbart News previously reported, Sessions’ DOJ filed a lawsuit against the Colorado corporation, with the suit being the first-ever case based on President Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” executive order.

In 2016, according to the DOJ, Crop Production discriminated against at least three American workers in El Campo, Texas, by refusing to give them jobs in seasonal positions. The company instead awarded those jobs to imported foreign workers who came to the U.S. on the H-2A visa program.

The DOJ complaint alleged that Crop Production hit American workers with tougher job requirements than they did foreign workers on H-2A visas in order to discourage Americans from taking jobs at the company’s Texas facility. According to the DOJ, American workers were forced to complete background checks and drug tests, while the imported foreign workers were allowed to begin working before completing either of the job requirements.

The DOJ complaint alleged that Crop Production refused to hire an American worker who had limited English-speaking abilities and instead hired foreign H-2A workers who did not speak any English. Crop Production gave all of its U.S. jobs in 2016 to foreign H-2A workers, rather than Americans.

Every year, thousands of foreign nationals are allowed to enter the U.S. to take agricultural jobs under the H-2A visa program. For more than a decade, the H-2A visa program has allowed for Americans to have their blue-collar wages driven down or remain stagnant.