In Rajaram v. Meta Platforms, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that discrimination against U.S. citizens on the basis of their citizenship is prohibited under 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Purushothaman Rajaram, a naturalized U.S. citizen and information technology professional, alleged that Meta Platforms, Inc., refused to hire him because it prefers to hire noncitizens holding H-1B visas to whom it can pay lower wages. The court noted:

An employer that discriminates against United States citizens gives one class of people—noncitizens, or perhaps some subset of noncitizens—a greater right to make contracts than “white citizens.” If some noncitizens have a greater right to make contracts than “white citizens,” then it is not true that “[a]ll persons” have the “same right” to make contracts as “white citizens.” That is precisely what the literal text of the statute prohibits.

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