By Luc Cohen
(Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday said it would drop a case accusing Elon Musk’s space technology company SpaceX of refusing to hire certain immigrants.
The Justice Department last month signaled it could back away from the case, brought during Democratic President Joe Biden’s term.
Musk, a top adviser to Republican President Donald Trump, is leading a commission tasked with identifying waste in the federal government.
In a Thursday court filing in Brownsville, Texas, government lawyers asked a judge to end a pause in proceedings so they could file a notice of dismissal of the case. The Justice Department said it would dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it could not be brought again.
Texas-based SpaceX and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Justice Department in August 2023 filed an administrative complaint alleging SpaceX from 2018 to 2022 routinely discouraged asylum recipients and refugees from applying for jobs and refused to consider them.
The company has denied wrongdoing, saying federal export control laws require it to employ only U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
SpaceX sued to block the administrative complaint, which would be heard in-house by an administrative judge. The company said DOJ administrative judges are improperly appointed by the U.S. attorney general because they are granted powers that should be reserved only for officials appointed by the president.
A judge had temporarily blocked DOJ from pursuing the case while it weighed arguments from both sides.
Trump and Musk have both been critical of the powers of federal agencies, including those like DOJ with in-house enforcement proceedings.
On his first day in office, Trump declared illegal immigration a national emergency. He has stepped up deportations and issued a broad ban on asylum claims.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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