The Supreme Court rules immigrants do not have a right to back pay if employed illegally.
WASHINGTON -- Immigrants who work illegally in American plants, restaurants and fields do not have the same rights to restitution as U.S. citizens who are mistreated on the job, a divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The court ruled that a plastics company owed nothing to a Mexican man who used a friend's identification to get a job. The Bush administration argued that without the threat of punishment for employers, some of the millions of undocumented workers in the United State might be exploited.
Justices split 5-4 along ideological lines on whether companies can be forced to give back pay to illegal workers wrongly fired or demoted.
"Awarding back pay to illegal aliens runs counter to policies underlying" federal immigration laws, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote in the court's opinion.
2006-10-10
07:09:21
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