On March 16, the ACLU, the National Employment Law Project, and the University of Pennsylvania’s Transnational Legal Clinic will testify before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. At issue is the U.S. government’s failure to ensure that undocumented workers in the United States can access workplace protections. While undocumented workers undertake some of the most dangerous, low-wage jobs in the United States, the patchwork of state labor laws leaves many of these workers vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination, without legal protections when they are injured at work. Moreover, some employers have taken advantage of this situation to report undocumented workers to immigration officers for deportation when they report labor abuses.

Hundreds of workers trafficked to the U.S. from India to work in shipyards after Hurricane Katrina were lured here with dishonest assurances of becoming lawful permanent U.S. residents. In February 2015, the company responsible and its representatives were ordered to pay $14 million to five of the victims. It was the largest amount ever awarded by a jury in a labor trafficking case.

On April 20, 2011, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against Signal International, LLC for abusing hundreds of foreign guestworkers from India lured to work in the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina.