no, you're right. but going back to 2007 rules for Canadian teams is going to make the separation even more distinct
passports do matter. no one said that citizenship is the only way to establish national origin, obviously. but that's not to go so far as to say citizenship is irrelevant. are you suggesting that a 'canadian citizen' is not 'canadian?' or a 'colombian citizen' is not 'colombian?' or is it just a 'u.s. citizen' who is not 'american?' 'u.s. citizen' might count as national origin. and 'colombian citizen' might, etc.. you don't get citizenship without grounds. so it would end up being illegal to discriminate against someone because of their passport, no? are you saying that current mls roster rules are legal or illegal? (do you think there's some way that mls could count concacaf players as 'domestic?') in any case, mls 'discriminates' against national origin absent u.s. citizenship or a green card. or don't you agree with that?
Just to throw another hypothetical out, suppose MLS decided to go America on everyone's ass (to use an Always Sunny reference) and declared no more international players in MLS. All players would have to be US citizens or permanent residents. Would that be legal or valid? My view is that such a rule might not violate US law but would probably violate Canadian law. It would certainly be a breach of faith with the Canadian owners and most likely violate various FIFA rules. The point is that there are other considerations in play in addition to US law.
Nobody said a United States citizen is not an "American." What I said is that whether you are a United States citizen (or permanent resident) or not is not dependent on your national origin. Here's how the EEOC defines "national origin": [N]ational origin discrimination means treating someone less favorably because that individual (or his or her ancestors) is from a certain place or belongs to a particular national origin group. If you hire Omar Gonzalez but refuse to hire Rafa Marquez because he doesn't have a U.S. passport, you are not discriminating based on national origin. Both are the children of Mexican parents who identify as Latino and hold Mexican passports. That is their national origin. If you hire Landon Donovan but refuse to hire Omar Gonzalez simply because he identifies as Latino and holds a Mexican passport, you are discriminating based on national origin, even though both players were born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens with U.S. passports. National origin is a broader category than race, but it's a different category from citizenship. I can't tell you whether the current rules are legal; I'm not a Title VII lawyer or an immigration lawyer, and I don't know all the ins and outs of when it is and isn't acceptable to restrict jobs to citizens/permanent residents only. "Citizenship discrimination" is a complex area, and it depends on details of the process I'm not privy to. However, my understanding is that MLS sought guidance from the EEOC or another relevant agency and is working under that guidance, which is a good indication that their current policy is legal, at least if they've implemented it properly. As for whether MLS could simply put forth a list of countries, whether that list was just "1. Canada" or whether it included all of CONCACAF, and give those countries' citizens preferences in hiring? In other words, "We will give preference to Mexican players over Japanese players because of they/their ancestors are from a certain place"? No, I don't see any way to avoid seeing that as a violation of Title VII.[/B]
except that you need to consider that people have more than one national origin. omar gonzalez also has 'american' as national origin. rafa marquez doesn't. so yeah, you're discriminating based on national origin, 'american' vs 'nn-american.' it's just that it's within the law to do it like that. so, mls does it. you can 'trump' mexican origin with american origin (and a passport or green card lets you do it). but it's still the game of national origin. or in other words, being a u.s. citizen may not be dependent on having an american 'origin,' but once someone is a u.s. citizen, the united states counts as (one) country of origin for him/her. as a naturalized citizen, you 'belong.' i agree with the second part of your post.