Facebook will pay up to $ 14.25 million to resolve employment discrimination claims in the US.

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WASHINGTON – Facebook will pay up to $ 14.25 million to settle civil lawsuits filed by the United States government that the social media company discriminated against workers and violated other federal hiring rules, US officials said Tuesday.

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The two related agreements were announced by the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Labor. The Justice Department announced last December that it was filing a lawsuit accusing Facebook of granting hiring preferences to temporary workers, including those who hold H-1B visas that allow companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in certain specialty occupations. These visas are widely used by technology companies.

Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, called the settlement with Facebook historic.

“It represents by far the largest civil penalty that the Civil Rights Division has recovered in the 35-year history of the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act,” Clarke said in a call with reporters, referring to a key immigration law in the United States.

The case focused on Facebook’s use of the so-called permanent labor certification, called the PERM program.

The United States government said Facebook refused to recruit or hire American workers for jobs that had been reserved for temporary visa holders under the PERM program. He also accused Facebook of “possible regulatory hiring violations.”

Facebook will pay a civil penalty under the settlement of $ 4.75 million, plus up to $ 9.5 million to eligible victims of what the government called discriminatory hiring practices.