Revolt of the workers

Providence Journal: Who knows whether it will last, but it is gratifying to see the Bush administration beginning to take America's immigration laws seriously. Since 1986, federal law has forbidden employers to hire illegal aliens. In recent years, however, federal authorities have all but ignored it. America has an estimated 11 million illegal aliens, but in all of 2004, the Feds fined only three companies for hiring them. The public uproar over illegal immigration seems to have been heard in the White House. Finally.
One of the more apparently flagrant cases is now before the U.S. Supreme Court. A group of Georgia workers charge that Mohawk Industries, a carpet company, hired recruiters to find illegal workers. They want to sue the company under the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act. The Bush administration has sided with the workers.
The case centers on whether a company can be sued under the civil provisions of a federal law that was designed to fight organized crime.
We don't see why not. In 1996, Congress had expanded the racketeering law to specifically include the hiring of illegal workers.
Different names
In this case, Mohawk had allegedly contracted with a third party to procure illegal workers. The suit claims that Mohawk employees traveled to Brownsville, Texas, to make arrangements with a recruiter to supply illegal immigrants for its Georgia factory. It further claims that the company hid the workers during searches of the plant -- and that illegal immigrants found to lack the proper payments were able to come back with different names.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked whether it made sense to "RICO-ize vast amounts of commercial activities" that have nothing to do with organized crime. Hiring undocumented workers happens to be illegal, and Mohawk Industries seemed nothing if not "organized" in finding an accomplice to help it break the law. Surely, the RICO act doesn't apply only to colorful mobsters.
The Mohawk workers pushing the suit argue that in hiring illegals, Mohawk had conspired to depress their wages. They say that illegal aliens now account for nearly half the workers.