The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is actively helping illegal immigrants get work visas so they can testify against businesses which hire illegals.
In addition, illegals who join in union organizing can get legal protection from firing and can make them eligible for a visa if they are fired.
“They are saying, ‘If you want to stay, file a complaint and you can stay,’ ” said Angelo Amador, labor policy director for the National Restaurant Association.
At the same time, it creates a potential catch-22 scenario for employers. Federal immigration law says they must inquire about their workers’ legal status and fire those who are not legally eligible to work. Half of the states also mandate the use of the E-Verify system.
But firing those employees could get the business in trouble with the National Labor Relations Board if the workers claim their legal status was just a pretext for firing them because of their union activity. The usual remedies are reinstating the worker and awarding back pay.
Obama’s NLRB is exploiting a loophole in a ruling in this area by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court waded into the mess in a 2002 case, Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. National Labor Relations Board. It ruled that a business cannot be required to violate immigration law to comply with the Labor Act. Thus, it cannot be forced to rehire or give back pay to someone it shouldn’t have hired in the first place. However, the court let alone non-citizens’ right to file complaints against their employers.
Now, the NLRB is trying to find illegals who qualify for what is known as U or T visas.
The U and T Visas are eligible for immigrants who are victims of crimes. The U Visa is for victims who have “suffered substantial physical or mental abuse,” according to the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Service. The T Visa is for victims of human trafficking. Both are intended for cases involving serious organized crime activity in which the perpetrators brought the victims into the country.
Having a law enforcement agency certify an illegal qualifies for one of these two special case visas, makes it much easier to move an illegal to legal status.
That’s a big boost for the application, Stock noted. “One of the requirements to get a U Visa or a T Visa is that there be a law enforcement agency that certifies that you are the victim of a crime or a witness they need,” he said. Finding new ways to use the U and T Visa was one of the instructions President Obama gave in his November executive order, Stock added.
