July 10, 2006

The U.S. Supreme Court has lately put a crimp in the momentum of lawyers who'd like to use the federal RICO (racketeering) law to sue companies that allegedly employ illegal aliens (see Jun. 19, etc.). However, ingenuity springs eternal: report Dan Walters in the Sacramento Bee reports that Orange County lawyer David Klehm is rolling out lawsuits against alleged employers of illegal construction and building-maintenance workers under California's unfair business practices act, s. 17200. Although Proposition 64 curbed lawyers' ability to use that statute for sheer bounty-hunting without proof of injury, Klehm says the requisite injury is that suffered by competitors of the employers involved. "The prospect of hurting employers of illegal immigrants excites anti-illegal immigration groups, which have allied themselves with Klehm and are urging their members to hunt out and report rogue employers. The goal, they say, is to substitute lawsuits for the inability or unwillingness of federal immigration authorities to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants."