American Civil Liberties Union

Immigrant workers, who often lack knowledge of U.S. labor laws and are afraid to assert their legal rights as employees, are commonly exploited by employers who refuse to pay them minimum wage or over-time.

Immigrants are not the only group that suffers as a result of bad workplace practices. Since 1986, immigration laws have required employers to verify the identity of all new employees and to document their eligibility to work in the U.S. Most of these laws require employers to use E-Verify — a flawed and experimental Social Security Administration database. The use of such an error-ridden database leads to problems for lawful workers who must persuade multiple bureaucracies to fix their records if they want to keep their jobs.

Rather than run the risk of suffering the employer sanctions laws' penalties, many employers would simply rather not hire individuals they perceive as foreign-born. As a result, there is widespread employment discrimination against U.S. citizens and other legal residents.

Additional Resources:

Supreme Court Agrees To Review Arizona Employer Sanctions Law In ACLU Case (2010 press release): In June 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted for review Chamber of Commerce v. Candelaria, a case challenging an Arizona statute imposing severe state sanctions on employers who allegedly hire immigrants not authorized to work in the United States. The American Civil Liberties Union represents certain petitioners in the case, including the community organizations Chicanos Por La Causa and Somos America.

Immigrants' Rights Project: Workplace Rights (2006 resource): The IRP works to ensure that federal employment, labor and anti-discrimination laws provide meaningful protection to noncitizens, legal residents and Americans alike. Any person perceived to be foreign born is highly vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and abuse in the workplace.

Most Popular:

Employment Verification Would Create a ‘No Work List’ in the U.S. (2008 press release): As the House Ways & Means subcommittee on Social Security met today to debate employment eligibility verification systems, the American Civil Liberties Union sounds its call for Congress not to erect barriers for Americans who seek employment. The hearing is to examine the impact that employment verification systems would have on the Social Security Administration (SSA), an already overburdened governmental agency.

Undocumented Workers Bring Plea for Non-Discrimination to Human Rights Body (2006 press release): The American Civil Liberties Union, the National Employment Law Project and the Transnational Legal Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law today filed a petition urging the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to find the United States in violation of its universal human rights obligations by failing to protect millions of undocumented workers from exploitation and discrimination in the workplace.

Government Terminates "No Match" Rule Harmful To Legal Workers (2009 press release): The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) today formally issued a final rule rescinding the Social Security “no match” rule. The “no match” rule, which was never implemented, would have forced employers to fire workers based on discrepancies in their Social Security records. DHS first announced its plan to rescind the rule in July, and with today's publication of a final rule in the Federal Register, the rescission will go into effect in 30 days.

Faces of Justice Denied - Immigrant Workers in Iowa (2010 resource) Hundreds of immigrant workers in Iowa arrested and convicted en masse in one week without adequate legal representation, then deported without any court review