By: Tyler Balding
Public debate around immigration usually begins and ends at the border. News cameras focus on crossings and caravans, federal agencies issue statements about asylum backlogs, and political figures argue over enforcement priorities. But the real consequences are increasingly unfolding somewhere else entirely: inside American workplaces.
As the federal government tightens asylum procedures, slows green-card adjudications, and signals broader skepticism toward certain immigrant groups, employers are reacting, sometimes consciously, often subconsciously. John Maynard Keynes would describe this as the destabilization of expectations; alternatively, Milton Friedman would have us focus on what he would likely describe as market distortions created by the government’s artificial constriction of labor supply. Regardless of your camp of economic thought, rapid federal shifts create anxiety long before they create clarity, and employers tend to fill those gaps with assumptions. In employment law, assumptions often become the raw material of discrimination.
Employees across industries now report subtle but consequential shifts: extra documentation requests during onboarding, hesitations from hiring managers regarding candidates with foreign-sounding names, and the quiet sidelining of qualified workers whose ancestry has recently become the subject of political rhetoric. These changes are not driven by legal developments. Title VII has not changed, nor have the anti-discrimination provisions of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (“IRCA”). Any change in the discussion is driven by perception.
This pattern is not new for our country. When immigration enforcement becomes highly visible or politically charged, private employers often internalize the public messaging faster than they internalize the legal boundaries around it. That dynamic appeared during the Chinese Exclusion era, where officials applied neutral regulations in discriminatory ways, a practice the Supreme Court ultimately condemned ages ago in Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886). It appeared again during World War II, when sweeping suspicion toward Japanese Americans resulted in private employment exclusion long before formal detention orders. And during the rollout of IRCA in the 1980s, employers routinely over-verified lawful immigrant workers until DOJ intervention made clear that such conduct violated the law.
Today’s environment is the latest iteration of that phenomenon. But it is unfolding in a labor market far more globally interdependent than in any prior era.
A Modern Example of Rhetoric Outrunning Legal Reality
The most current political commentary that is surrounding potential ICE activity in Minnesota illustrates the risk. Public reporting indicates that federal agents have only conducted enforcement actions involving a small number of Somali nationals. Several public figures, however, spoke as though Somali communities more broadly were subject to removal or as though federal authority could sweep across an entire nationality. This is rhetoric that is inaccurate on both sides regardless of whether the party is attempting to create ‘illegal’ villains or champion ‘victims’ as white knights. This messaging gained traction despite the demographic reality: the vast majority of Somali Minnesotans are U.S. citizens or long-established lawful permanent residents whose legal status is not contingent or revocable. This fact remains regardless of what opinions one might have of the Somali diaspora.
Whatever one thinks about accusations of fraud, cultural issues, or economic dynamics, the issue of citizenship is clear cut. Yet the public discourse often implied that an entire community existed in a kind of precarious legal state. That insinuation poses a predictable workplace hazard. Employers, especially those without in-house legal expertise, have the potential to absorb the tone of political rhetoric more quickly than the actual details of immigration law. When a group is repeatedly discussed as if its membership can be “removed,” organizations sometimes begin to treat workers from that ancestry as inherently unstable, regardless of their actual legal status.
This shift does not require animus. It only requires employer misinterpretation. And history has shown that misinterpretation is enough to trigger national origin discrimination outcomes. Federal law provides no space for such assumptions: Title VII bars employment decisions tied to ancestry rather than performance. A modern illustration comes from Zamora v. Elite Logistics, Inc., 478 F.3d 1160 (10th Cir. 2007), where an employer, fearing an immigration raid, repeatedly demanded work-authorization proof from a Mexican-born employee who had already provided valid documents. Although the court ultimately ruled for the employer on the national origin discrimination claim, the factual record shows how enforcement pressure can cause employers to treat certain national origin groups as inherently “at risk”, not because the law changed, but because the atmosphere did.
The Legal and Practical Risks for Employers
In periods of intense immigration debate, businesses often attempt to “play it safe.” But caution, when directed at the wrong variable, becomes liability. Extra verification requests, hesitancy in promotion, and assumptions about future work authorization all expose employers to discrimination claims, even when the worker affected is a full U.S. citizen. Moreover, when employers conflate political commentary with immigration law, they risk institutionalizing bias without recognizing it.
The Supreme Court’s guidance is consistent: neutral policies applied in discriminatory ways violate the law (Yick Wo). Unfair employment decisions that are based on ancestry or perceived foreignness violate Title VII. No political cycle or enforcement campaign alters these principles.
What has changed is the speed at which public rhetoric now permeates private decision-making. Employers are operating in an environment where impressions arrive instantly, legal nuance arrives slowly, and the margin for error is shrinking.
What Workers Should Understand
Workers should know that:
• their ancestry cannot be treated as evidence of instability;
• their citizenship cannot be questioned without cause;
• their national origin cannot be used to predict future “complications”; and
• their rights do not disappear despite political commentary.
If employees detect shifts in treatment tied to national origin, whether subtle changes in tone, heightened scrutiny, or sudden assumptions about eligibility, they are not witnessing a political inevitability. They are witnessing a potential violation.
Immigration policy may fluctuate, but workplace discrimination law does not. As federal rhetoric intensifies, the legal risk for employers grows, not because enforcement changes anyone’s status, but because it distorts perceptions. And when perception begins to replace lawful judgment, national origin discrimination takes root.
This is precisely where experienced employment law counsel becomes essential. At Carey & Associates, P.C., we help employees recognize when “compliance concerns” cross the line into unlawful national origin discrimination, and we hold employers accountable when shifting political narratives are used to justify unequal treatment. For more information, please contact Carey & Associates, P.C. at info@capclaw.com or (203) 255-4150.
