Priorities: DOJ goes after college for requiring green card from legal immigrant

Nina Bernstein of the New York Times offers "John Jay College Accused of Bias Against Noncitizens" (nytimes.com/2010/04/17/nyregion/17johnjay.html):

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit on Friday against John Jay College of Criminal Justice, alleging that the school engaged in a pattern of job discrimination against noncitizens who were authorized to work.

The lawsuit, considered the department’s first in years to crack down on immigration-related discrimination against noncitizens, says the college violated provisions of immigration law by demanding extra work authorization from at least 103 individuals since 2007, rather than accepting the work-eligibility documents required of citizens, like a Social Security card and a driver’s license...

(Thomas Perez), assistant attorney general for the department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement: “Every individual who is authorized to work in this country has the right to know they will be free from discrimination as they look for a job, and that they will be on the same playing field as every other applicant or worker.”

The college is working out a settlement agreement with the DOJ and with the woman from Korea who kicked off the DOJ's investigation. She had presented the college with a driver's license and a Social Security card but couldn't provide them with a green card since that was in the process of being issued.

The law's the law and if someone thinks that the documentation standards aren't strict enough, work to change the law. However, this helps illustrate the DOJ's priorities. The chances of them going after much bigger fish - employers of illegal aliens, banks that knowingly profit from money that was earned illegally by illegal aliens, and so on - are rather slim.