Justice Department fines IT company for AI job ads excluding US workers
Washington: The US Department of Justice has reached a settlement with a Virginia-based IT services company after it allegedly used artificial intelligence to generate job advertisements that excluded American workers.
The Civil Rights Division said it secured a settlement agreement with Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions, describing it as a “Virginia IT professional service provider”.
The department said the settlement “addresses allegations that the company violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) when it posted job advertisements generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that included citizenship status restrictions not authorised by law, including language restricting consideration only to applicants with H-1B, OPT, or H-4 visas.”
“It is unconscionable for companies to illegally exclude US workers when recruiting and hiring,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
“This Department of Justice will not tolerate discriminating against U.S. workers, no matter who — or what — drafts a job advertisement, or whether it is an employee, a recruiter, or an AI tool,” Dhillon added.
According to the signed settlement agreement dated February 23, 2026, the company agreed to pay a civil penalty of $9,460 in two instalments of $4,730 each.
The department said this is the eighth settlement since it re-launched its Protecting US Workers Initiative in 2025. The initiative enforces the INA’s prohibition on discrimination based on citizenship status against companies that favour workers with employment visas over US workers.
Under such settlements, the department “obtains civil penalties for each violation and will continue to seek the maximum penalty permitted by law.”
It added that the agreements “also involve awards of back pay, when warranted, and require employers to conduct comprehensive training to relevant staff and recruiters and cease restricting consideration for job opportunities based on workers’ citizenship status without a lawful reason.”
As part of the agreement, the company must not “discriminate against individuals based on citizenship status or national origin during the recruitment, hiring, firing, or employment eligibility verification and reverification processes”.
It must also not “intimidate, threaten, coerce or retaliate against any person” for participating in the matter.
The Justice Department has, in recent years, stepped up enforcement of anti-discrimination provisions under the US immigration law. The Immigration and Nationality Act bars employers from favouring temporary visa holders over US citizens and certain authorised workers unless required by law or government contract.