Your story is a perfect example of how the US now tosses aside its most valuable resource - our human capital. We are mo longer a meritocracy. Your value to society is based upon where you fall in the ‘disadvantaged spectrum’.
Speaking cnservatively, that policy cost us two managers, three testers (with 30 years of combined experience on the contract) and one tech. All of them were excellent workers. The last I heard, that contract was finally lost and the highly educated residue of staff that remained were all cut. This one policy was not by itself responsible for the loss-I could write a book about the stupidities I saw-but it created a leadership vaccuum that was filled by ivory tower academics who cared more about receiving industry accreditation than keeping the contract.