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CA Court Says Illegal Aliens Get Benefits

The Second District Court of Appeals ruled late yesterday that illegal aliens who obtain employment dishonestly are still entitled to workers’ comp benefits. The ruling (Farmer Brothers’ Coffee v. WCAB, Rafael Ruiz) leaves employers, even those who do not knowingly hire illegal aliens, on the hook for the costs of their workers’ comp benefits – both medical and indemnity.

The case involves one Rafael Ruiz who was injured in 2002 while working for Farmer Brothers Coffee. During the deposition process Ruiz admitted -- unbeknownst to Farmers’ Brothers -- to using a false social security and green card to obtain employment. Based on his immigration status Farmer Brothers denied employment of Ruiz and thus benefits, invoking both the Federal Immigration Reform Control Act (IRCA) and specific sections of the California Insurance Code.

The Second District ruled IRCA is meant to sanction employers for employing illegal aliens, “not diminish in any way labor protections in existing law, or to limit the powers of federal or state…or labor standards agencies.�

The court says that California has made it clear that an employee’s immigration status is not a bar to receiving benefits or unscrupulous employers would be encouraged to hire illegal aliens, thus relying on the feds to believe their good faith statements that the employees’ documents were genuine. The Workers’ Comp Appeals Board, the court reasons, would then be thrust into the role of enforcing federal law and determining an injured worker’s immigration status.

In a technical ruling, the court says that Ruiz did not violate the California Insurance Code by using false documentation to obtain workers’ comp benefits because the documents were used to obtain employment, not benefits. Only if Ruiz had been previously convicted for using fraudulent documents could he be denied benefits, the court rules.

Dishonest employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens to put them in harm’s way should be fined, and the court points out that an employer is required to terminate an illegal once the immigration status becomes known. But according to the law, the court concludes, an employer is still obligated to pay a benefitâ€â€