The fear of deportation lies on unlicensed workers trying to fight exploitation, but all workers in the US have rights

The Trump administration has repeatedly said it wanted to deport as many people as possible. It is unclear what that means for an estimated 8.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the American workforce.

It is also unclear whether these mass deportations will occur. The deportations recorded so far have not been on track to achieve Trump’s goals. And the economic reality is that deporting a huge number of migrants can lead to serious labor shortages. One in 20 people in the United States are fraudulent immigrants. If they are forced to leave all of them, or if they are scared to the point of not being able to show up for work, it can be harmful to the economy.

In some cases, the right to work of unauthorized workers can be another obstacle.

I am a professor who has spent more than 20 years studying immigrant labor organizations. In my co-authored Scaling of the Rights of Immigrant Workers, I explained that unlicensed workers in the United States have a right to work and how those workers can defend them. It’s challenging, but in some cases, labor laws protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation at least temporarily.

Legal protection

Federal and state laws ensure basic protections for all workers, regardless of the immigration situation.

That includes the right to have a safe workplace, earning a general minimum wage wherever you are employed, and overtime salaries. Workers can report labor violations to the government even if they are foreign-born and have no legal permission to work in the US

It is illegal for an employer to retaliate to report workers organised in the workplace or minimum wage or overtime violations, unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment or racism.

Certainly, ensuring that these rights are respected is difficult for workers who fear deportation, especially during very anti-immigrant regimes, such as those led by Trump.

That should be said, and not authorized workers have all the rights of their labour, both citizens and permanent residents. For example, if an unauthorized worker is illegally fired for trying to form a union, he or she is not entitled to pay or reinstatement as a citizen or immigrant who has obtained the necessary permission to work in the United States. This limit essentially gives the employer the right to organize unions that are meaningless to fraudulent immigrants if they retaliate.

Disability and threats

Of course, immigration rights are difficult to implement.

Many immigrants do not speak English well. They may feel distrustful of the government. They may have trouble finding someone to represent them for free when they are faced with a violation of labor law.

Enforcement of labour standards for fraudulent workers relies heavily on workers’ complaints and burdens victims with voice-overs and filing claims when faced with violations. However, they find it difficult to navigate many bureaucratic layers to file complaints with the appropriate authorities.

Many undocumented workers face threats from employers who may threaten to report to immigration authorities if they complain to the Labor Bureau about unfair treatment or dangerous working conditions. This fear of deportation keeps many vulnerable workers silent about their exploitation.

By the end of 2024, the enforcement agencies are mostly responsive, with only staff investigators responsible for enforcing minimum wage, overtime and child labor laws. Even before the start of the second Trump administration, only 1% of all farm employers surveyed each year were surveyed.

Those numbers could rise if Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, resumes a massive enforcement raid that halted the Biden administration in 2021.

Previously, ICE had visited meat filling factories and other employers from Texas to Texas to Tennessee, which rely heavily on immigrant labor to verify employment permit documents. Authorities will detain workers without a valid paper, and likely deport them. Their employers could be ordered to halt employment of fraudulent migrant workers in the face of criminal fines and penalties.

By early March 2025, the second Trump administration had not raided large corporations. Instead, it highlights traffic stops and visits to small employers in communities with a large number of fraudulent immigrants. But many large employers and communities are preparing for these waves of business.

Wage theft and contribution to funds benefits they cannot obtain

Before Trump took office for the second time, the working conditions for immigrants were already difficult without permission.

In part, it means that if an employer speaks up, the employer fears that he will report it to federal immigration enforcement agencies, and that many people will experience wage theft. This means you will not receive all pay and benefits, or your compensation will be below the minimum wage you reside in.

Usually, immigrants who live without permission, despite having low incomes, are employed in the United States, pay more than $96 billion in federal, state and local taxes per year.

They also contribute to the social security system despite not having access to these benefits upon retirement.

Postponement measures for labor enforcement programs

However, over the years, many undocumented workers have stepped forward to protecting their rights of work with the support of workers centres, labor unions, immigration-led organizations and consulates from their countries of origin.

In decades, increasingly prominent grassroots advocacy against unauthorized migrant workers has become visible in January 2023, when the Department of Homeland Security launched a deferred lawsuit on its labor execution program. Known as Dale, it protects migrant workers from exploitation and encourages reporting of labor violations without fear of the consequences of immigration.

The government program has issued more than 7,700 work permits by October 2024, providing temporary deportation protections and work permits to eligible workers. The Dale program encourages many workers to report labor violations without fear of retaliation for speaking out, thus encouraging them to increase minimum labor protections for all workers’ minimum workers.

However, Dale’s fate is now unknown when Trump returns to the White House.

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