Faith Based Trucking Company Being Fined Nearly 3/4 Million Dollars By Feds For What Are Being Characterized As “Unfair Hiring Practices”
Because Faith-Based Covenant Transport And Their Subsidiary Transport Management Services Insist On Requiring Verifiable Immigration Status Documentation For Hiring, The Company Is Being Fined $700,000 By The U.S. Government.
Image Credit: Covenant Logistics / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Kelly M. Jackson] –
As recently reported by local news, a faith-based trucking company in Chattanooga called Covenant Transport and their affiliate, Transport Management Services LLC were found by federal investigators to have violated the part of the Immigration and Nationality Act that relates to verifying I-9 documentation.
Based on information found on this federal website, the federal government compels companies to accept documentation that “reasonably appear to be genuine and to relate to the person presenting them.” It continues, “To do otherwise could be an unfair immigration-related employment practice that violates the anti-discrimination provision in the INA. You must not treat individuals who look and/or sound foreign differently in the recruiting, hiring, or verification process.”
The INA, or the Immigration and Nationality Act, an LBJ era law, was enacted and at that time removed the “de-facto” (practices that exist in fact regardless of whether or not it is officially acknowledged) discrimination against Southern and Eastern Europeans as well as Asians. President Johnson signed it into law in October of 1965.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 created a seven-category “preference system” that gives priority to relatives and children of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, professionals and other individuals with specialized skills, and refugees.
Under the INA, in November 1986, an addition was made that compelled all employers to complete and retain Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification, for every person they hire for employment, so long as the person works for pay.
In the case of Covenant and its subsidiary Transport Management, they were, according to investigators of the federal government, on a “routine basis” requiring non-U.S. citizens to produce their Permanent Resident Cards (Green card) or documents related to their immigration status.
Both forms of identification would objectively seem to be more verifiable than another document that is subjectively scrutinized by the employer since the federal government would have a record of the application and approval of a Permanent Resident Card, or any other document that relates to a person’s immigration status.
Because the companies insisted on utilizing verifiable documentation, and not whatever document the individual who presents it chooses, the company is being fined by the US Government $700,000.
A review of Covenant’s website allows the observer to make note of the information the company provides regarding its faith- based roots.
Under “Covenant’s Beginnings” it states, “In 1986, David and his wife Jacqueline had a vision to start their own trucking company. David made an agreement (a covenant) with God: they would run the business “the right way,” if God would provide. David and Jacqueline Parker invested their hard-earned seed money to start Covenant Transport, with 25 trucks and 50 trailers.”
Additionally, under their section labeled “Corporate Culture” it says, “They built Covenant’s corporate culture around these three values: treat others as you want to be treated (empathy), put others before yourself (servanthood), and do business with integrity, honesty, and fairness in all situations (virtue)…. These values are driven by a common goal: to keep America’s shelves stocked and her markets moving.”
The reports from local news don’t elaborate on exactly what Covenant and its subsidiary specifically did to violate the vague language in the law, referring to documentation that “reasonably appears” to have a relationship to the person trying to use it as proof they qualify for employment.
It appears that the government decided to qualify Covenant’s decision to favor verifiable documentation, over documentation that is subjectively chosen, and then subjectively verified, as “unfair discrimination” under the law. Which would then give them license to penalize the company for what is at best a nuanced distinction in the language of the law.
It is also not beyond the scope of believability that perhaps Covenant’s profession of faith and their effort to act in accordance with that faith that caused them to become a target for what has become in recent years, a notoriously overzealous justice department when it considers matters involving conservatives.
If there are any further developments, we will make that information available to our readers.
About the Author: Kelly Jackson is a recent escapee from corporate America, and a California refugee to Tennessee. Christ follower, Wife and Mom of three amazing teenagers. She has a BA in Comm from Point Loma Nazarene University, and has a background in law enforcement and human resources. Since the summer of 2020, she has spent any and all free time in the trenches with local grassroots orgs, including Mom’s for Liberty Williamson County and Tennessee Stands as a core member. Outspoken advocate for parents rights, medical freedom, and individual liberty. Kelly can be reached at kelly@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
Whose the bigger bigot and racist, the trucking company or the feds. I vote feds.
Gonna get to the point companies are just gonna fold from being forced by lucifer’s minions to hire people who are liabilities instead of assets.
MAGA so companies can again hire the best and cull the misfits.
They follow the law by not hiring Illegals and now get fined for not hiring illegals!!!! I believe our Fed. Gov. is the most corrupt one in the world now??
Where does E-Verify fit in here? Not so much an eligibility issue as it is a religious persecution issue.
Exactly, religious persecution for Covenant.
The INA is a “civil law” or “Munipal law” and it applies to the territory where Congress holds sovereignty, not over the 50 States. These are two separate jurisdictions for Congress. The INA uses the 3rd definition of “United States” (see Blacks law dictionary 5th or 6th Edition). The term “United States” holds three different meanings yet the public thinks it ONLY means the 50 States (aka USA). WRONG. “U.S.” = USA only in the Constitution. The term “U.S.” generally and almost always means Fed. Gov. (or instrumentality/office of it) in law. It is usually a thing, not a place. U.S. holds this meaning in many sections of the Constitution as well. The unknown meaning of U.S. in federal civil law is the territory where Congress holds sovereignty (D.C. and U.S. territories). These are the U.S. Gov’s “states”. Most of us don’t live there and are not subject to their civil/municipal laws. D.C. is foreign to the States of the Union and each State is civilly foreign to each other, but D.C. is not a member of the Union. It is a unique territory with its own blend of civil laws and constitutional applications. Compound this with Congress calling it a “state” and the “United States” and the jurisdiction becomes very confusing. Because the 14th Amendment does not include D.C. or the U.S. Territories, Congress had to create their own “U.S. Citizen” via statute (see Title 8) pursuant to their exclusive legislative authority over these territories but Congress cannot circumvent the Constitution so their “U.S. citizen” is only a statutory privilege not a right and not the equivalent of the Constitution’s citizen of the U.S.. 99% of their civil/municipal laws define D.C. and the U.S. territories as “States” and the “United States”. When they do, this is a dead give-away that the statute only applies within their exclusive jurisdiction. Congress is not permitted to change the meanings of the words of the Constitution in order to create a greater jurisdiction. The INA’s Form I-9 is one such law that is for their exclusive jurisdiction as it defines “United States” in the third definition and only gives the appearance it has jurisdiction. If it were challenged in court, it would fail. But, if not challenged,… the court would be required to presume it does hold jurisdiction. See “Presumption of Regularity Doctrine”. They obviously don’t teach this in law school anymore than they teach civics in school. Federal funding made sure of this.
And our GOP supermajority voted to give professional and commercial licenses to illegal aliens with work authorizations in 2022. That was known as the Workforce Expansion Act sponsored by Shane Reeves and Bill Freeman. Of course our worthless governor signed the bill into law. It’s even worse now with the Biden admin passing out Work Authorizations at the border.
This company should stand their ground and simply place an administrative freeze on new hires. Then counter sue based on existing law against hiring “illegal” aliens. By the time the case is settled Donald Trump should be back in office and injustice like this will be stopped.
There’s no reason to hire people who will be deported within a years time.
What a terrible article. It is factually incorrect and needlessly inflammatory. It says that the government is “allowing for subjective tests” when that isn’t the case at all – there is a very specific list of documents that allow one to obtain employment.
I’m an employment law attorney. The law is really super clear about what documents are acceptable and not acceptable for getting employment. It’s A (ID and birth/right to work proof) or B (ID Proof)+C (right to work proof)
A documents:
US Passport
Green card
Employment authorization card
Foreign passport with I-94 stamp
B documents:
Driver’s License
State photo ID
School ID card w/photo
Voter registration card
US Military Card
Military dependent ID
Coast Guard MMD card
Native American tribal document
Canadian license
C documents:
Social Security Card
Consular certification of birth abroad
US State Department certification of birth abroad
Original/certified birth certificate
US Citizen/resident citizen ID card
DHS Employment Authorization Documents
https://www.uscis.gov/i-9-central/form-i-9-acceptable-documents
Hiring is one thing you DON’T mess around in as a business. You follow federal law. If you have the documents required by federal law, the test is satisfied. Don’t believe the crap in that article.
Guess what? Interstate commerce doesn’t mean any transaction that has or may cross state lines at any point…it actually means commerce between the state governmental bodies themselves. The feds do not have unlimited authority to regulate anything and everything simply because it *could* cross a state line or *has* or *will* cross. They’ve just given themselves this power out of nowhere. We are way past the point of needing to reign in this unlimited power. Maybe the trucking company could threaten to challenge it and also the definition of state in title 18
Doesn’t sound intelligent, who are the specific people that fined them and where were they ?