I only took the gig so I could get the vaccine as soon as it came out. It was a huge pay cut, and a very easy job. Why fight to stay and keep working somewhere you don't want to be, when instead you could get an extra 3k/month on unemployment?
Corporations are a useful thing, and are commonly used stateside to do shady things - like getting paid by a customer, but not officially working. Like collect unemployment, while collecting dividends for a contract your company has with a customer. What you have to do is keep applying for jobs. Most of the spam my linkedin gets is from indian recruiters. There is zero chance one of them can get you a job in the states. The ones that can will all have a name you can pronounce.
It is possible to get a payout for wrongful termination. This will count against your unemployment claim. It will cost (as the estimates in my case were) 10-20k for the attorney. I will likely have to go to court/arbitration, and it takes lots and lots of time and stress. As someone who is a company owner, I spend about 50 hours/week on owning my company (not working for my company). I can get a max of about 20-25k for the wrongful termination... It's just not the right way to go.
As a sidebar, I've worked and lived in France, Catalonia, Russia, and Japan - while living in those countries. I am in fact originally from Europe, but came stateside at a young age. Outside of Russia, the US has the crappiest "process" as you call it. It's a country where that process was put in place by corporations, to result exactly in this: the process is just not worth it.
The "do not discriminate bit" was sarcasm. We have this thing in this great country, where the people who do the most discriminating are the ones who complain most about being discriminated against. What to do if you're a criminal or a bully? Claim you're a victim. I won't go into that, because by this country's standards, I'm going to be flagged as a racist.