(VIRGINIA) — The U.S. Department of Justice announced on February 25, 2026, that it reached a settlement with Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Inc. over allegations that the company’s job advertisements discriminated based on citizenship status.
The case put a spotlight on AI-assisted recruiting, after federal investigators said the company used an AI-generated tool that produced visa-restricted job ads that excluded protected U.S. workers.
“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,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division, in a statement issued February 25, 2026.
Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Inc., an IT professional service provider in Aldie, Virginia, agreed to a three-year settlement that requires changes to its recruiting practices and workplace policies, the department said.
The Department of Justice said the company’s AI-generated job advertisements restricted applicants to specific visa categories, including H-1B, OPT (Optional Practical Training), and H-4 visas.
Federal law does not let employers use visa labels as a proxy for who has permission to work, the department said, when those restrictions operate to exclude workers protected by the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The department’s Civil Rights Division led the investigation through its Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, known as IER, which enforces the INA’s anti-discrimination provisions in hiring, firing and recruitment.
The settlement includes a civil penalty payment to the U.S. Treasury and requires policy changes and training intended to prevent future citizenship status discrimination tied to job advertising.
The agreement also requires the company to review and revise all employment policies, conduct comprehensive training for all recruiting staff, and cease any advertising that unlawfully excludes protected U.S. workers.
As part of the settlement, the company must post the Department of Justice “If You Have The Right to Work” notice in both English and Spanish, a step the department uses to inform workers of their rights and how to contact IER.
The department framed the enforcement action as a warning to employers that using automated systems does not shift responsibility away from the company when ad copy or screening language crosses legal lines.
In announcing the settlement, the department said “blanket” restrictions in job ads—such as stating “H-1B only” or “No U.S. Citizens”—violate the INA unless required by law, regulation, or government contract.
The settlement also fits into the Department of Justice’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which the department said it re-launched in 2025 in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The department described the Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions case as the eighth settlement since that 2025 re-launch, with the initiative focused on visa-preference or visa-restriction hiring practices that may exclude protected U.S. workers.
Related settlements announced in early 2026 include Natsoft Corporation on January 6, 2026, and Nitya Software Solutions, Inc. and Intellicept, Inc., both on January 5, 2026, in cases the department said involved citizenship status discrimination in job postings or restricting positions to H-1B holders without legal justification.
The Department of Justice also cited Tekshapers Inc., which it said paid civil penalties and back pay to a U.S. worker in a settlement announced December 18, 2025, as another example of the initiative’s enforcement posture.
For U.S. workers, the department said the cases reinforce that recruitment cannot be structured to bypass U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees through visa-only language that blocks otherwise work-authorized applicants.
For foreign nationals, the department said visa categories are not a lawful substitute for work authorization screening rules, and employers can violate the INA when they treat visa types as the threshold eligibility test for a job ad.
Employers using AI tools to draft or optimize job ads face compliance risks when automated systems embed unlawful preferences or exclusions, the department said, while stressing that companies remain responsible for what those tools publish.
Beyond the penalty, the settlement’s requirements point to compliance themes the department repeatedly seeks in these cases: policy governance, recruiter training on citizenship status discrimination, ad review controls that cover AI-generated content, and workplace notices intended to make rights visible.
The department’s announcement appeared in a Department of Justice press release about Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions, and similar actions typically appear in the Civil Rights Division’s IER Settlements and Lawsuits Registry, with immigration-facing initiative updates also reflected in the USCIS Newsroom.
Justice Department Settles with Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Over Citizenship Status Bias
The Department of Justice settled with Virginia-based Elegant Enterprise-Wide Solutions Inc. over discriminatory job ads produced by AI. The ads restricted applications to specific visa categories, violating the Immigration and Nationality Act by excluding protected U.S. workers. This case marks the eighth settlement under the re-launched Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, signaling a strict federal stance on automated recruitment systems that embed unlawful hiring preferences.
