3 ms·
The law for immigration status in hiring is that you can't discriminate on the basis of it unless the government requires you to. The government's saying both t
by zerocrates 3y ago
The law for immigration status in hiring is that you can't discriminate on the basis of it unless the government requires you to. The government's saying both that ITAR doesn't actually restrict asylees and refugees, and also that not being a "US person" under ITAR isn't really a bar that should count (you can get approval from the government for non-US persons to work on export-controlled stuff, or have them work on other things).
You can tell they're really hanging their hat on the first one, though: even if you say for simplicity you want to have only "US persons" under ITAR, that doesn't justify excluding asylees and refugees.
Among the evidence in the filing is, of course, an Elon Musk tweet, saying you need at least a green card to work at SpaceX.
Also, the numbers: over the course of about four years SpaceX hired exactly one asylee, and that one shortly after they were told they were under investigation.
- tracker1 3y agoAre there a large number of rocket scientists and/or communications experts in the asylum/refugee pool applying at Space-X? I'm not intending to be snarky, but my guess is the relative pool may not be that large. Of course there are lower-level jobs (janitorial, catering, etc) that may not require the same kinds of clearance. All said, I can understand the mistake in terms of interpretation of the regulation.
- zerocrates 3y agoI don't know how many people we're talking about. In absolute terms I'm sure it's not a huge number. The filing lists a few anecdotal cases. Part of the complaint is also that they publicly stated that you need citizenship or a green card many times over the years, so there were probably people improperly deterred from applying at all.