The Justice Department announced this week that it has reached a settlement agreement with Denver, Colorado-based Navajo Express (CCJ Top 250, No. 114), resolving DOJ’s determination that Navajo Express violated the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) by discriminating against non-U.S. citizen workers when checking their permission to work in the United States.
Under the terms of the settlement, Navajo Express will pay more than $40,000 in civil penalties to the United States, train staff on the INA’s anti-discrimination provision, review and revise its employment policies, and be subject to departmental monitoring for a two-year period.
Navajo said in a statement to CCJ that, “per the terms of the settlement agreement with the DOJ, Navajo has admitted no wrongdoing in connection with the DOJ’s investigation. Instead, Navajo settled with DOJ simply to avoid unnecessarily costly and prolonged litigation.”
Navajo noted that it is a family-owned business that has grown from 13 trucks when it was founded in 1981 to a leading refrigerated carrier in the U.S., adding that it takes issue with DOJ’s claims.
“The backbone of Navajo is its over the road drivers,” the company said. “It should therefore come as no surprise that Navajo takes issue with the gross mischaracterizations set forth by the DOJ in its Dec. 13, 2022, press release.”
According to DOJ, the investigation into Navajo began when a non-U.S. citizen complained that the company refused to accept valid documentation proving his permission to work and demanded a different document from him.
The investigation found that Navajo “routinely required lawful permanent residents to show their permanent resident cards (known as green cards) to prove their permission to work, even when they had already presented other valid documentation,” DOJ said.
