Federal Court Reaffirms Protections for Undocumented Workers

In a decision that significantly clarified the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's March 2002 decision in Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, a San Francisco federal court has held that an undocumented worker has the legal right to sue his employer for reporting him to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service because he filed a claim for his unpaid wages.

Rejecting the employer's argument that Hoffman deprived plaintiff Macan Singh of any protection against blatantly retaliatory acts, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer held on August 5, 2002 that Mr. Singh was not only protected by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act's anti-retaliation provisions, but that he was also entitled to recover compensatory and punitive damages because of his arrest and prolonged detention by the INS. Singh v. Defendant, U.S.D.C., N.D. Cal., No. C 02-1130 CRB, reported at ____ F.Supp.2d. ____, 2002 WL 1808589, 2002 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14978 (N.D. Cal. 2002).

In this case, Mr. Singh had filed a claim for three and a half years' unpaid wages against his former employers, who had forced him to work without pay at two East Bay gas stations under conditions amounting to involuntary servitude. After a hearing at which Mr. Singh was represented by LAS-ELC staff attorney David Pogrel, the California Labor Commissioner upheld Mr. Singh's wage claim and ordered his employer to pay him wages owed in the amount of $69,633.73. Although the employers initially appealed that decision, the wage claim was eventually settled. However, as soon as the settlement was reached, Mr. Singh alleges that the employers contacted INS with allegations about his immigration status. He was detained immediately afterwards, and spent nearly sixteen months in INS custody. Although he was recently released on bond, Mr. Singh remains under a final order of deportation.

"Judge Breyer's decision dispels any notion that Hoffman deprives undocumented workers of basic workplace protections, such as the right to be free from reprisal when they choose to assert their legal rights," said LAS-ELC senior staff attorney Christopher Ho, one of the lawyers representing Mr. Singh. "To the contrary, this decision unequivocally reaffirms the fact that all workers are covered by our employment and labor laws, totally irrespective of their immigration status."

David Pogrel, the LAS-ELC staff attorney who successfully prosecuted Mr. Singh's original wage claim against his employer, added, "Macan Singh's courageous decision to come forward to claim the wages he rightly earned, under intolerable conditions, has been thoroughly vindicated by the Court's decision. I hope this ruling will help to educate the public that undocumented workers do indeed have rights against exploitation -- and that employers who retaliate against them for exercising those rights do so at their own great peril."

The Supreme Court in Hoffman had held that an undocumented worker who was fired in violation of the National Labor Relations Act was covered by that act, but that he was not entitled to recover "back pay" remedies for the period he was unemployed due to his unlawful termination. The Hoffman decision has been strongly criticized by immigrant workers' rights advocates.

In his analysis of Hoffman, Judge Breyer pointed out that the Supreme Court had merely "preclude[d] illegal aliens from a very specific remedy," and that it had also emphasized the fact that the employer in that case did not know of the worker's undocumented status when it hired him. In this case, by comparison, Judge Breyer concluded, "Prohibiting plaintiff from bringing this claim under the FLSA would provide a perverse economic incentive to employers to seek out and knowingly hire illegal workers, as defendant did here, in direct contravention of immigration laws."

The LAS-ELC is co-counseling this case with Diane L. Webb and William W. Friedman of Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison LLP, and Marielena Hincapie and Sara Campos of the National Immigration Law Center.