The U.S. Justice Department is suing the Tuscany Suites & Casino in Las Vegas over allegations the property discriminated against non-U.S. citizen job applicants and employees over a five-year period.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., last week announced it filed a lawsuit against the hotel-casino in the Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer of the agency and served the company on May 29.
A request for comment was placed with the Tuscany.
The suit alleges the property engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination in the employment eligibility verification and reverification process.
The complaint alleges:
• Tuscany treated non-citizens differently from U.S. citizens during the employment eligibility verification and reverification process by requesting non-citizen employees provide more or different documents or information than was required.
• Tuscany subjected lawful permanent residents to unnecessary reverification procedures based on their citizenship status. These are workers with Permanent Resident Cards (green cards).
The federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) requires employers to treat all authorized workers equally during the hiring, firing and employment eligibility verification process, regardless of their national origin or citizenship status, the government said.
“The department vigorously enforces the anti-discrimination provisions of the INA so that authorized workers are treated fairly in the work place,” Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The suit says the Tuscany had been hit with a discrimination complaint in early 2011 by an unidentified “charging party,” and that in October the Justice Department’s Office of Special Counsel notified the Tuscany “it was expanding the investigation to include a possible pattern or practice of document abuse against non-U.S. citizens.”
“From at least January 2006 to at least October 2011, respondent (Tuscany) knowingly treated individuals differently in the employment verification and re-verification process on account of their citizenship status,” the lawsuit says.
The suit seeks an unspecified fine and “full remedial relief to work-authorized non-U.S. citizen employees for the losses they have suffered, including back pay and reinstatement.”