The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office (AGO), along with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and the Seattle Office of Labor Standards, has spearheaded a coalition of 27 labor enforcement agencies, including state attorneys general and other state and local entities, in calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to extend the protection period of the Deferred Action Program for noncitizen victims and witnesses of labor violations from the current two years to a minimum of four years in order to better support labor rights enforcement efforts.
The call for extending the deferred action protection period was made via a letter to DHS.
DHS’s Deferred Action Program offers protection from deportation for noncitizens who are victims or witnesses of labor rights violations, or who are otherwise the subjects or participants of a labor investigation. The program also grants work authorization for individuals who demonstrate a need to work. The current deferred action protection period is two-years, after which individuals are required to apply for a renewal to extend their protection.
The program has enabled labor enforcement agencies to secure cooperation in investigations from noncitizen victims and witnesses of labor violations by lessening noncitizen workers’ fear of deportation. Such agencies rely heavily on workers being willing to report labor rights violations, provide information during investigations, and act as witnesses during enforcement efforts.
However, due to the often-complex nature of such investigations, along with the challenges in securing witness cooperation from noncitizens fearful of deportation and retaliatory threats of deportation from their employers, these cases often extend beyond two years before enforcement is completed. If noncitizen workers lose their protection from deportation prior to completion of an investigation and any related enforcement action, they may be unable to serve as witnesses or to continue assisting these agencies. Without ongoing protections, labor law violations may go unpunished, undermining the efforts of such agencies and witnesses. The coalition thus urges DHS to extend the deferred action protection period from two years to four years.
Noncitizen workers are disproportionately employed in low-wage and high-turnover industries where they are vulnerable to exploitation by employers who often purposefully target them and violate their rights with illegal practices. These practices include paying below the applicable minimum wage, failing to pay workers all their wages or delaying their wages, refusing to pay overtime, failing to follow recordkeeping requirements, misclassifying employees as “independent contractors,” denying them access to earned sick time, failing to provide workers compensation coverage, and exposing them to illegal workplace health and safety hazards. These violations are common in industries such as cleaning, construction, and food service.
Such employers prey on noncitizen workers’ fear of deportation and retaliation, knowing that it will dissuade them from reporting violations to and assisting labor enforcement agencies and law enforcement, and exploiting that fear by threatening to report such workers to immigration authorities.
The coalition asserts that extending the deferred action protection period from two years to four is necessary to make noncitizen workers less vulnerable to the fear of deportation and enable law enforcement agencies to successfully complete investigations and other enforcement actions in order to bring justice to all those impacted by labor rights violations, including both citizen and noncitizen employees, as well as employers who do play by the rules.
While workers are able to apply for a renewal of protections after the current two-year period of protection expires, the renewal process can be complex and burdensome for both workers and the agencies involved, with no guarantee that a renewal will be granted. Indeed, an extension of the protection period would allow noncitizen workers to be less reluctant to work with law enforcement, knowing that they will be protected for an extended period of time without needing to undergo an uncertain renewal process.
In the letter, the coalition also provides multiple examples of enforcement actions taken by their agencies that require more than two years to complete. As one example, in June 2022, the Massachusetts AGO began an investigation into the wage and hour practices of a cleaning company that employs a primarily-immigrant workforce. The investigation into the company is ongoing two years later, as the company has attempted to shield itself from liability by forming another company. The investigation involves hundreds of impacted employees, whose testimonies and participation are crucial to the AGO’s efforts in proving the violations and securing restitution and payment for workers.
The letter in its entirety may be viewed here.
Joining the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office in sending the letter were the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont, along with the Seattle Office of Labor Standards, California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, the California Department of Industrial Relations – Department of Occupational Safety and Health, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the Denver Labor Auditor’s Office, the Los Angeles County Office of Labor Equity, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, and the Office of the New York City Comptroller.
In Massachusetts, this matter was handled by the Attorney General’s Fair Labor Division, including Assistant Attorney General Alex Sugerman-Brozan.
Workers in Massachusetts who believe their rights have been violated may call the AGO’s Fair Labor Division at (617) 727-3465 or file a workplace complaint with the AGO.
Original source can be found here.