Does Your Immigration Status Affect Your Workplace Rights Under California Law?

Does Your Immigration Status Affect Your Workplace Rights Under California Law?

Your immigration status does not strip you of fundamental workplace protections under California law. California has made a deliberate policy choice to extend most employment protections to all workers regardless of their immigration status. The state’s antidiscrimination laws, including the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), apply to you whether you are documented or undocumented. This means you have the right to be free from discrimination based on protected characteristics like race, gender, disability, and other factors covered by state law. You also retain protections against workplace harassment and retaliation under California’s employment statutes. The state has specifically declared through multiple statutory provisions that worker protections, rights, and remedies are available to all individuals regardless of immigration status, with only narrow federal exceptions.  

California law provides specific protections against employers who use your immigration status as a weapon against you. Under the FEHA, it is considered an adverse employment action if your employer threatens to contact or actually contacts immigration authorities or law enforcement regarding your immigration status in retaliation for exercising your workplace rights. Similarly, Labor Code § 244(b) makes it unlawful for employers to report or threaten to report your suspected citizenship or immigration status to government agencies because you have exercised rights under the Labor Code, Government Code, or Civil Code. These protections recognize that threatening to involve immigration authorities is a particularly coercive form of retaliation that California law explicitly prohibits.  

You maintain robust whistleblower protections under California law regardless of your immigration status. Labor Code § 1102.5 protects you from retaliation when you report violations of law, and this protection extends to undocumented workers. You can report unsafe working conditions, wage violations, discrimination, or other illegal conduct without fear that your employer can legally retaliate by threatening to involve immigration authorities. The law recognizes that allowing employers to silence undocumented workers through immigration threats would undermine the entire framework of workplace protections and create a class of workers vulnerable to exploitation.  

While your substantive workplace rights remain largely intact, federal immigration law does create some limitations on the remedies available to you. The primary restriction involves backpay awards—if your employer discovers your work authorization status and you are found to be ineligible to work in the United States, federal law may limit your ability to recover lost wages for periods after that discovery. However, this limitation is narrow and does not affect your right to pursue claims for discrimination, harassment, or other workplace violations. California courts have been careful to ensure that these federal restrictions do not swallow the rule of broad workplace protections for all workers. The state’s commitment to protecting all workers reflects the understanding that vulnerable workers—regardless of status—deserve safe workplaces and fair treatment under the law.  

If you have an employment problem, call the best. Call the Kaufman Law Firm!