On November 19, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a press release announcing a new one-page technical assistance “Fact Sheet” regarding national origin discrimination.
The EEOC also updated its national origin discrimination guidance page, which provides information about “what national origin discrimination can look like in the workplace” and how employees may obtain EEOC assistance if they feel they have been the victim of discrimination. The new guidance makes good on EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas’ February announcement vowing to protect American workers from “Anti-American bias.” As part of that announcement, Lucas asserted that “[m]any employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, and visa holders or other legal immigrants over American workers—in direct violation of federal employment law prohibiting national origin discrimination.”
The Fact Sheet
The Fact Sheet – which leads with the headline Discrimination Against American Workers is Against the Law – reiterates the prohibitions imposed on employers by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which have always included discrimination against applicants and employees on the basis of national origin. This Fact Sheet, unlike previous guidance from the EEOC on this topic, emphasizes that this prohibition includes discriminating against United States citizens. It lists several possible forms of “Anti-American” workplace discrimination, including:
- Discriminatory job advertisements that indicate a preference or requirement that applicants be from a particular country or visa status.
- Disparate treatment of United States citizens, such as firing a U.S. citizen, who is “on the ‘bench’” between assignments while retaining “employees who are visa guest workers” or “subjecting U.S. workers to more laborious application methods.”
- Harassment, including “unwelcome remarks or conduct based on national origin.”
- Retaliation in response to protected activity, including “objecting to or opposing national origin discrimination at work.”
The Fact Sheet also notes that certain “common business reasons”—such as customer preference, lower labor costs, and beliefs that workers from certain national origin groups “possess a better work ethic than another national origin group”—do not justify hiring foreign workers over U.S. workers.
Updated Guidance Page
In addition to issuing the new Fact Sheet, the agency revised its online guidance page regarding national origin discrimination, adding new references to “American workers” and deleting some information that was previously available on the site. Items removed include a section about employment practices or policies that may be associated with national origin discrimination, such as an employer promulgating an “English-only” rule when English proficiency is not necessary to perform the job effectively or safely. Also removed was a section about citizenship discrimination that reminded employers about the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and its prohibition of discrimination on the basis of citizenship or immigration status.
The EEOC page previously included a sidebar, including a Fact Sheet about Anti-Arab, Anti-Middle Eastern, Anti-Muslim and Anti-Semitic discrimination, related Q&As for employers and employees, and immigration-related procedural guidance. The sidebar now leads with a link to the portal where violations may be reported and includes a link to the newly released Fact Sheet. Another sidebar section “For More Information” underscores that “Protecting American Workers from Anti-American Bias” is among the priorities championed by EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, and further illuminates the current administration’s cross-agency emphasis on the subject by providing links to U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) resources and information about the Civil Rights Division’s (CRD) Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative.
Implications for Employers
In a press release issued on November 24, 2025, the DOL “applauded” the EEOC for its new and updated materials, attributing them to the DOL’s “Project Firewall,” an enforcement initiative aimed at encouraging employers to “prioritize qualified Americans when hiring” and leveraging the Labor Secretary’s authority to personally initiate investigations of employers suspected of abusing the H1-B visa program. Project Firewall was first announced on September 19, 2025, the same day that a presidential proclamation imposed $100,000 fees on new H1-B petitions.
The DOL press release about the EEOC materials describes the inter-agency collaboration as a “whole-of-government effort” to “proactively combat unlawful discrimination against American workers and properly enforce the law by leveraging the full strength of the federal government.”
Relatedly, on November 25, 2025, the EEOC announced a settlement agreement with an employer charged with discriminating against American workers by providing immigrant agricultural workers from a foreign country with preferential and less strenuous job assignments, more work hours, higher pay, and higher bonuses. In September, the CRD announced a settlement with a staffing services company accused of limiting recruitment for certain positions to individuals holding H-1B visas. A September 29, 2025 press release notes that this was the third such settlement since the DOJ resumed the Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative to enforce the law against companies that illegally discriminate against American workers in favor of those with employment visas.
By all indications, as we head into 2026, federal agencies are inviting complaints and will continue to focus on using immigration and civil rights laws to combat what used to be frequently labeled as “reverse discrimination” as well as “illegal DEI.”
Staff Attorney Elizabeth A. Ledkovsky contributed to this blog post.
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