Florida legislators discuss change in law that punishes injured immigrant workers

A Florida lawmaker said he will file a measure in the session that began Tuesday to require employers and insurers to pay workers’ compensation benefits to undocumented workers injured on the job who now can be denied coverage.

A Naples Daily News investigation found that some Florida businesses profit from the labor of unauthorized immigrants after accepting false IDs without verifying the documents. But they or their insurers report the workers after they’re injured on the job under a state law that makes it a felony to obtain a job or benefits with false identification.                                             

While some businesses or their insurers avoided paying for injury claims, their workers got arrested, faced jail and deportation, and had to pay for medical care for their injuries.

Florida's disposable workers: Companies profit from undocumented laborers, dump them after injuries 

More: Undocumented immigrant workers face prosecution in other states after suffering injuries

Employers and their insurers report these workers under a workers’ compensation fraud statute. Fraud statutes are meant to punish those who try to cheat the system, such as employees who try to lie about injuries. But a 2003 Florida law is punishing immigrants who are legitimately injured if they use Social Security numbers not assigned to them or use fake identification to obtain employment or workers’ compensation benefits.

“It´s just not fair to the injured workers,” said Rep. Sean Shaw, a Tampa Democrat and member of the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee.

Shaw said that if employers hire immigrants without checking their documents, then the businesses and their insurers should provide the compensation and medical care as warranted under the state’s workers’ comp law.

Shaw said he is preparing an amendment to workers’ comp legislation already introduced that would require employers and insurers to pay claims of injured undocumented workers who used false identity information if the employer didn’t verify the documents.

Senate President Pro Tempore Anitere Flores, a Miami Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking and Insurance, said she will support changes in the state law, although she didn't address Shaw's proposal specifically.

“Although I will not be filing legislation on this matter personally, I anticipate supporting efforts that address this issue,” Flores said.

Republican Rep. Charles Wesley Clemons, R-Newberry, said the Daily News story shows that something needs to be done to protect all workers. Clemons, a member of the House Insurance and Banking Subcommittee, said he will schedule a hearing on the subject with committee Chairman Danny Burgess Jr.

Burgess, R-Zephyrhills, said he thinks the use of E-Verify, a free federal online database where employers can check if workers' documents are genuine, would prevent labor exploitation.

“I don’t want to see any worker deprived of the compensation that they are due. I also don’t ever want to see people being exploited,” Burgess said in a statement. “But let’s be real here. This issue is not an immigration problem. Employers are the first line of defense when making hiring decisions, and that’s why I favor an E-Verify system to keep these kind of situations from happening.”

Data: View a breakdown of data showing cases in Collier County 

A Daily News analysis found that most of the injured immigrants who were charged in recent years worked for companies that provide labor and personnel services to high-risk industries such as construction and landscaping.

One of these companies, SouthEast Personnel Leasing, employed a third of all the workers charged. For a decade, the company hired the workers without checking their documents, but then its insurer, owned by one of SouthEast's owners, reported the injured employees for using false documents.

Workers’ advocates and court rulings have argued that letting companies and their insurers not pay for unauthorized workers' injuries could make workplaces more dangerous for every employee and incentivize unscrupulous employers to recruit unauthorized workers on the belief they won’t be responsible for the cost of their injuries, undercutting law-abiding companies.

About 600,000 unauthorized immigrants work in Florida, according to estimates from the Pew Research Center, and some of the state’s most dangerous industries rely heavily on them. Undocumented employees make up 1 in 5 construction workers and 1 in 3 farmworkers in the state, according to that organization.