Hiring
Instacart will pay $5 million to settle federal allegations that it made it harder for U.S. workers to apply for jobs the company was filling through the green card sponsorship process, the Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday, Oct. 20.
The agencies said Maplebear Inc., the San Francisco company that does business as Instacart, required applications to be physically mailed for positions it advertised as part of Permanent Labor Certification, or PERM, recruitment. Its standard hiring process accepted electronic applications. As a result, the agencies said, many of the U.S. workers who applied were not considered in a timely way.
What the agencies alleged
The settlement resolves allegations of discrimination on two legal tracks. According to the Justice Department, the agencies alleged that Instacart discriminated against U.S. and American workers based on citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and based on national origin, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division enforces the citizenship-status provision; the EEOC enforces Title VII.
The Justice Department said its investigation found that the mail-only requirement created additional burdens for U.S. workers and that the EEOC’s investigation “uncovered similar evidence.” The department described the practices as intentionally favoring workers with temporary employment visas. These are the agencies’ conclusions from investigations resolved by agreement, not findings by a court.
PERM is the Labor Department process that lets an employer sponsor a temporary visa holder for permanent residence after it has made a good-faith effort to recruit U.S. workers for the job. The Justice Department said employers in that process may not add burdens for U.S. applicants, publish ads that disfavor them, or use procedures that limit or segregate their applications.
The money and the required changes
Instacart will set up a settlement fund of up to $4 million to compensate applicants, as well as people who were deterred from applying, who were affected between December 2023 and February 2026. A claims administrator will contact potentially affected people and decide eligibility for back pay and compensatory damages. The company will also pay $1 million in civil penalties to the United States.
Under a Justice Department summary of the agreement, Instacart must post PERM positions on its public website and let U.S. workers apply electronically. It must revise its PERM-related policies, train personnel annually on the citizenship-status and national-origin discrimination provisions of the two laws, and appoint a monitor to oversee its PERM program, with reports on its compliance. The public summary does not state how long the agreement lasts.
Until the claims administrator sets up its own contact address, the agencies are asking applicants and deterred applicants who believe they were affected to email Instacart@eeoc.gov so the information can be passed along. The Justice Department’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section also runs a worker hotline at 1-800-255-7688.
Instacart's response
Instacart said its hiring practices complied with U.S. laws and regulations but that it agreed to the settlement to remain focused on its business, according to the Associated Press. “Hiring and investing in American workers across our U.S. business is our priority,” the company said in a statement quoted by the AP.
Part of a broader enforcement push
The Justice Department said the agreement is the 15th settlement since it relaunched its Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative in 2025. The EEOC said it is the agency’s fourth public settlement involving anti-American national origin discrimination since 2025, with five related lawsuits pending in federal court.
Mail-only PERM applications have figured in earlier cases. The AP noted that Apple agreed to a $25 million settlement in 2023 over similar allegations and that Facebook agreed to pay $14 million in 2021 to settle claims about its hiring practices.
For job seekers, the case is a reminder that a sponsored role may be advertised outside an employer’s usual careers page and through channels that are easy to miss. For employers that file PERM applications, it signals that federal agencies are scrutinizing whether those openings are as accessible to U.S. applicants as the rest of their hiring.
Sources
- U.S. Department of Justice, “Civil Rights Division and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Secure $5,000,000 Joint Settlement with Instacart for Discriminating Against U.S. Workers,” October 20, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/civil-rights-division-and-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-secure-5000000-joint
- U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, “Summary of Instacart Settlement Agreement,” October 20, 2026. https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1466996/dl
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Civil Rights Division and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Secure $5,000,000 Joint Settlement with Instacart for Discriminating Against U.S. Workers,” October 20, 2026. https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/civil-rights-division-and-equal-employment-opportunity-commission-secure-5000000-joint
- Associated Press via Chattanooga Times Free Press, “Instacart settles federal claims of discrimination against US-born job seekers,” October 20, 2026. https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/oct/20/instacart-settles-federal-claims-of/
Featured photo: The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C., March 31, 2026. Representative image; not Instacart. Photo: APK, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Cropped from the original.
