Audio clip
Joe Wolverton
When Amitay Samayoa quit a cleaning job in September, he thought he was going to work for a landscaping company that paid more money. The 17-year-old, who’d dropped out of school to work, needed the extra cash for his parents in Mexico.
But after working for a month without pay, Mr. Samayoa said he is owed close to $1,200.
Although they are in the country illegally, Mr. Samayoa and four of his co-workers who also worked without pay — some for a week, others for a couple of months — decided to contact a lawyer. They claim the owners of the landscaping company owe them about $7,000 in back wages.
Mr. Samayoa’s case is not that uncommon, local organizations and law enforcement officials say. Some employers feel they can get away with not paying illegal immigrants because, after all, what can such workers do? Fear of deportation keeps them away from the police or the courts, a sticking point some employers exploit.
Chattanooga Police Department Officer Harold Diaz, who called Mr. Samayoa’s former employer about the wages owed, said he has received two complaints in the past couple of months about 12 Hispanic workers not getting paid at two separate companies. He’s sure there are many more cases he doesn’t hear about, he said.
Joe Wolverton, a local attorney representing Mr. Samayoa and his four co-workers, said he gets about five calls a week from immigrants who didn’t get paid, and the problem is getting worse. Cases usually settle in a couple of weeks with the employees getting what’s owed, he said, but occasionally they can end up in court.
“It usually takes about a week, two weeks (to settle), once everyone realizes the workers are serious,” he said. “Because a lot of (employers) think they’ll just go away because they don’t want to mess with the legal system because they are illegal, but people are getting more sophisticated here and realizing they can take advantage of legal remedies just as anyone else.”
If an employer permits a person to work, that person must be paid, regardless of whether they’re an illegal immigrant, according to Martha Deacon, spokeswoman with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
“We always try to recover wages for workers regardless of their status,” she said in an e-mail. “We do not ask workers if they are in the country illegally.
“We need a signed complaint from each of the current or former employees; we try to get as much information as we can about the employer,” she said. “If the circumstances are such that we are unable to help, the complainant is referred to court.”
Illegal immigrants who take their cases to state court don’t put themselves at risk of being deported because immigration laws are federal laws, but the fear still persists.
Mike Feely, who is Chattanooga’s official liaison with the Hispanic community, said nonpayment of immigrants is an issue he and other advocates have been trying to address for several years.
“We started to tell folks they have the same rights as anybody else. If you are supposed to get paid, you are supposed to get paid,” he said. “But for the most part, there are no contracts. It is just one word against one word.”
For Mr. Samayoa and the other four workers, trying to get their money has cost them about $1,000 in legal fees and brought on the added challenge of finding new jobs.
Porfirio Hernandez, a Dalton, Ga., resident who’s also here illegally, said he worked for a construction company in Chattanooga for three days until he found out from other workers that they hadn’t been paid, some for a month. He said he tried to ask for $420 for 42 hours of work, but his boss gave him the runaround.
“After I realized I wasn’t getting paid and that I was just wasting more time and money, I decided to leave it alone and look for another job here in Dalton,” he said.
A lot of people decide not to pursue unpaid wages because they can’t afford being unemployed, especially if they have families to support, Mr. Hernandez said.
But he will make sure it doesn’t happen to him again.
“A lot of us just take the job without asking any questions, afraid that they won’t give us the job if we do,” he said. “Next time I’m going to make sure that I have in writing who’s going to be in charge of paying me and keeping track of my hours.”
Perla Trevizo joined the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2007 and covers immigration/diversity issues and higher education. She holds a master’s degree in newswire journalism from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Texas. She was selected as an International Reporting Fellow by the International Center for Journalists and in 2009 received an honorable mention for her story “Families Broken Apart” from the Tennessee ...
This is an excellent example of what we need to fix in this immigration mess. We need to document the 12 million immigrants already here so that they can function as normal members of our society, they're already doing so much of our work. I'm glad they're here cause I don't know anybody who works as hard as these undocumented workers do. Mark Montgomery boboberg@nyc.rr.com
Those employers who abuse of inmigrants legal or undocumented should be prosecuted. I do agree with you Mark Montgomery is time for our goverment to bring those peoples out of the shadows, they work real hard to provide for their families after all they are humans too and no because of their legal status should be discriminated
I say use the employers, and deport illegals!!!
The hiring of low-skilled immigrants is responsible for 40% of the decline in employment among Black American men. http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~GBorjas/Papers/Borjas,%20Grogger,%20Hanson,%202006.pdf
Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). An analysis of the National Research Council study, "The New Americans." http://www.cis.org/articles/1999/combinednrc.pdf
Punish the employers for hiring the cheap labor, and allowing the American public to subsidize their business.The article said, "Illegal immigrants .... don't put themselves at risk of being deported because immigration laws are federal laws, but the fear still persists." Do we only enforce State Laws? Is murder theft, or manslaughter a state or federal law? Laws should be enforced and entering this country illegally is a crime. How many illegal criminals should we make legal citizens? Is 500,000, 25 million, 35 million or more enough?. What's the number?
Put the employers out of business, and for the illegal criminals; "The long, the short and the tall" Deport them all. If you don't like deportation, take away the job magnet and they will go home on their own.
I thought that current IRS law requires ALL employers to withhold taxes from each employee's wages. How is this done if the employee has no legal status? If an attorney, as an officer of the court, is aware that someone is breaking a federal law and doesn't report it, then they should be disbarred!
Our is Economy down and Millions of American Citizens are out of work an Unemployment is at its highest level and our highest leaders considering amnesty?????
We need the SAVE ACT and E-verify used for every business and NOT Amnesty for criminals.
E-verify does not discriminate against RACE, Religion, SEX or physically capability only your Citizenship and your LEGAL right to be and work in United States.
If we can stop Predatory business owners from hiring then the Illegal Aliens will not Stay and return to their native Countries.
This ISSUE is not about RACE, but Governments Federal/State/LOCAL not doing their jobs, because big and small business owners want cheap workers and no labor laws to bother with......Its called GREED!
The only RACISTS are the single RACE agenda GROUPS like La RAZA, Mecha, Aztlan and ETC....Whose main goal is take our Western States back to Mexico.
Both Liberals and Conservatives need to take some pride in our Country and protect it from all invading nations citizens and corporate greed.
Please support, NO IMMIGRANT BASHING or HATE Crimes. HATE only feeds the single RACE agenda groups for Open Borders and the Media.
As a half-Mexican from central california (the ag capital of the world), I know quite a bit about this subject. What normally happens is that illegal immigrants have fake social security numbers, but actually pay into social security. They also pay taxes (or at least the employer takes taxes out). Becasue the IRS is such a huge bureaucracy, it rarely gets noticed. Most anti-immigrant people claim that they are milking the system, but study after study after study points to the fact that they pay more INTO the system than they take out. It seems asinine to not just have a government program to help the immigrants become citizens instead of spending money on beefed up border patrol, INS, and a butt-ugly fence along the border. A program that is kind of like adult school (immigrant school, if you will), where they are taught basic U.S. geography and English would only help out everyone. Because regardless of how the economy is right now, and regardless of how high unemployment is right now, the vast majority of Americans are not going to be picking strawberries or cleaning motel rooms.
For HernandezUSA, I agree that it is not ONLY about racism, but there are clearly two camps of anti-immigrants: the ones that want reform (mostly economic), and the ones that simply want to kick out the Mexicans and keep them out. There are plenty of whites that don't care if Canadians or Europeans are coming into the country illegally, but scoff at Hispanics coming in. For those, it's not about immigration reform, but racism. And the groups you mentioned are no worse than the minutemen, the klan, aryan nation, or neo-nazi groups. There are hate groups all around unfortunately.
cave-demon is right undocumented people pay in to social security, pay federal and in some places state taxes as well they also pay local taxes every time they buy something so they pay in to the system more than they take out this is the reason why.... a illegal inmigrant can't apply for social security benefits also they can't file their income tax and EIC, we need a inmigracion reform to help those good workers to be legal and the ones who are criminals kick them out but not before they spend some time in prision
plenty of WHITES who don't care about europeans or candians coming into this country? CHINESE!INDIA! ASIANS? we care but public seems to be left in dark over this problem too? yet our military secrets are being stolen by CHINESE ISRAEL SPYS? them poor poor illegals doing the work americans won't do story! now not getting paid by the illegal employers of them? amnesty is the answer promotion? billions added to a financial crisis across our country? financial crisis brought on by criminal corruption in the capital of united states by our own goverment? which also protects the illegal invaders too! here comes the hate talk groups calling anybody who opposes this billions added to our taxes cost a racist! red neck! klan member! PLEASE! THE HOMO GANG ACTIVIST! activist judges who protect the invaders and even let them out of jail bail to murder rape again innocent american citizens! this is not a problem with this amnesty supporters? why amnesty will make them legal citizens when they murder! rape! and child molest our american citizens. yet financial cost to deport this added financial burdon on american don't make any sense?????? thousands are losing jobs in america and republicons and democraps are bringing in more foreign H-1 visas for replacements? amnesty creates cheaper wages? does not replace americans PLEASE! argument who opposes this is a racist! red neck! jobs americans won't do bit line! how about jobs americans can not GET argument? we lose gain nothing from foreign invaders period. ARGUMENT? michigan little big horn AMEN.
Illegal aliens are not "immigrants." They are criminals. Google it, geniuses.
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