A number of Employers have been sued under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO). In those cases, legal employees and/or competitors have used the RICO statutes to sue Employers who use illegal workers Recently, Zirkle fruit Co, settled a RICO suit for $1,3 million. That RICO law suit was brought against Zirkle as a class action law suit by legal workers at Zirkle who alleged that by using illegal workers, Zirkle was depressing the wages of those employees who were authorized to work in the United States.

Therefore, Employers need to be aware of their exposure to litigation, fines and criminal prosecution in this complex area of the law, not just from the government, but from disgruntled employees and competitors.