Because you are at risk of employer retaliation, you should consider certain factors in making a decision to file a claim. These include: whether you have ever received threats from your employer; whether your employer knows that you are undocumented; whether your employer has ever reported or threatened to report any of your co-workers who enforced their rights or disagreed with the employer; and whether you believe that your employer may actually go so far as to report you.
In any case, you should never discuss your immigration status at work or carry any false documents with you. Also, you should seek legal advice before disclosing to anyone whether your documents are false. In recent years, employers have suspended or terminated workers because of information received from the Social Security Administration SSA that there is a problem with their Social Security number. Technically, an SSA no match letter is a private matter between the SSA and each individual employee, because the letter is sent by SSA only to make sure that workers receive proper credit for their earnings, which can affect future retirement or disability benefits.
Some employers even use the letters to intimidate vulnerable workers, including immigrant workers, who are involved in labor organizing campaigns. If the employer has received information from SSA, the employer must treat all workers the same. That means that if the employer only fires some but not all workers for whom it received SSA no match letters, the employer may be discriminating against those workers it suspended or terminated. An employer may also be breaking the law if it uses the letter to threaten a group of workers.
If your employer tells you that SSA sent notification about a problem with your Social Security number, you can contact Legal Aid at Work or speak with other employment lawyers, or an immigration attorney, to help understand your rights before responding to your employer regarding your Social Security Number, your work authorization, or your immigration status. Even if you are paid in cash, you are required to report your income.
Also, if you fail to pay your income taxes, you may be turned down for certain benefits that are paid for by your tax dollars e. In addition, immigrants need to show that they have paid taxes in order to be eligible for most immigration relief and benefits for obtaining lawful immigration status. If you do not have a Social Security Number to report your taxes, and if you cannot get one because you are undocumented, you can use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number ITIN to properly report your income.
As a side benefit, an ITIN usually can be used to open a bank account with certain financial institutions. Workers should never give their ITINs to their employers. The IRS can normally process your application within weeks, but it may take as long as 12 weeks or longer.
The IRS should keep confidential tax returns that are filed with ITINs, which means that they should not use them to turn people over to immigration authorities. However, there have been some incidents, although limited, where immigrants who filed their tax returns using ITINs were brought to the attention of immigration authorities. Skip to content Employment Rights of Undocumented Workers With a few exceptions, undocumented workers enjoy all of the legal rights and remedies provided to workers by both federal and California law.
What legal rights do I have as an undocumented worker? Are there any government benefits available to me in California? As an undocumented worker, what are my rights under wage and hour laws?
As an undocumented worker, what are my rights under health and safety laws? As an undocumented worker, can I organize or participate in a union? As an undocumented worker, can I collect unemployment insurance? As an undocumented worker, can I collect State Disability Insurance? As an undocumented worker, can I collect state Paid Family Leave benefits?
Do anti-discrimination laws protect undocumented workers? Can my employer discriminate against me because I am undocumented? As an undocumented worker, do I run any risks if I choose to file a claim against my employer?
What's more, he said that an employer who suspects a job applicant is an illegal immigrant but can't prove it and doesn't hire the person for that reason risks a lawsuit for discriminating against someone on the basis of their national origin. Q: Are stolen identity documents taken from unwilling victims? A: In many cases, the foreign workers have the owners' consent to borrow their identity papers to secure jobs, said Nowrasteh.
Research on the issue by a University of Colorado scholar found that most immigrant farmworkers use borrowed identity papers arranged through a supervisor, friend, colleague or fourth party. The "identity loan" arrangement helps the worker get a job, and provides financial benefits for the donor when payroll tax deductions from the foreign worker's wages go into the donor's Social Security account and boost the donor's unemployment checks.
According to the report by University of Colorado Anthropology professor Sarah Bronwen Horton, relatives often volunteer to share each others' documents. Her report said labor supervisors who help undocumented immigrants secure jobs sometimes force them to use documents supplied by the supervisors, which is called "working as a ghost.
Q: How common is it for immigrants to work in the underground economy or use fake or stolen Social Security cards? A: The Social Security Administration estimates that 1. It also estimates that 3. Q: How do authorities catch workers and companies violating immigration laws?
A: According to Nowrasteh, ICE sometimes gets tips that companies are employing lots of undocumented immigrants. Government audits of I-9 forms that show names and Social Security numbers of people who don't exist is another giveaway. In , ICE did I-9 audits at 1, companies.
That number climbed to 2, in , as of May 4, according to statistics provided by ICE. Q: What are the penalties for violations? The unauthorized workers face deportation. ICE said it made criminal arrests in work site enforcement cases in , and had made in , as of May 4. Its administrative arrests were in and in It did not provide a total. Q: Why have those statistics climbed so rapidly since last year? Fox is facing a low unemployment rate coupled with a relatively high proportion of college graduates in her area of Colorado.
In Pennsylvania, Rich Barna was unable to secure visas for any of the 15 employees he normally calls up from Mexico to supplement his 15 full time American workers. He posted the job opportunity as required, but has received no inquiries from native-born Americans. For example, in the LA Times presented a robust look on the state of labor for California farms.
Larger farms are offering attractive employment packages including higher wages and benefits like k plans, health insurance, paid vacation, holidays and sick days, and subsidized housing and ESL classes. The implications are that farming in this region will have to change if the industry is to survive. Farmers will need to make decisions about whether to change the produce they grow, abandon operations in the US and move them abroad, continue to rely on the temporary visa system and trust that they might be successful in the visa lottery, or replace workers with machines.
Faced with stiff competition from larger farms, Jeff Klein ripped out , Chardonnay grapevines that covered his land. In October , he began the process of replacing what remains of his grapes with almonds and olives, which he can maintain with fewer employees. Another farmer is exploring mechanizing his farm.
Brad Goehring is changing the way he plants his vineyards to allow for mechanical pruning and maintenance. And if not, he will also look for a new crop—an almond farm could be managed by three employees.
What is striking about the stories from New York to Pennsylvania to Colorado to California and everywhere in between is that they emphasize that despite higher wages, employers not seeing an influx of native-born Americans lining up to take the positions vacated by stresses on the immigration pool. This runs counter to the theories put forth by Harvard economist George Borjas, who has maintained that employers have reaped the benefit of having access to a large pool of low-skilled workers while American workers have suffered because there is more competition for lower pay.
The work is hard: it may mean working in extreme heat or cold, requiring physical labor that takes a toll on a human body. While the number of native-born members of the workforce and lawful immigrant workers increased from , the number of unauthorized workers did not. Within this group, males are more likely to be looking for work than either native-born or lawful immigrants. A study from the Urban Institute of 16 million workers in the United States without a high school diploma revealed that immigrants and native-born workers actually do very different jobs.
In fact, they are more dissimilar than workers at other educational levels. The reason for this is rooted in experience.
Immigrants may have limited English language or technical skills, which can limit their access to certain jobs. They may have an insufficient understanding of the workplace or lack state licensing. These factors are advantageous to native-born Americans.
On the other hand, bilingualism can help in some cases, as well as a proficiency in manual skills. These skills can be beneficial to immigrants. These experiences and skills are reflected back to us in the data: when compared with native-born workers, unauthorized immigrant workers are more likely to work in service and construction industries.
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