Immigrant Worker and Discrimination/Retaliation Protection

Although you cannot knowingly hire, refer, recruit or employ unauthorized immigrants, there are still protections against treating immigrants unfairly. These protections are contained in numerous overlapping statutes at the federal and state levels. Moreover, this has been an increasingly active area in terms of both legislation and enforcement on a national and state level. For more information, see National Origin and Verifying Eligibility.

Federal Immigration Protections

Under the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), if you employ four or more¹