In summary

California wants to protect witnesses in workplace investigations from deportation, but the Biden administration program for undocumented employees is at risk with Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

In 30 years in America, Alejandro Gamez took any job he could as an undocumented worker — at fast food restaurants, factories and car washes and driving trucks, even when conditions were poor.

“I had no status,” he said. “I had no options.”

But after speaking up in 2017 about unpaid wages at an Inglewood car wash, his fortunes changed. As part of a state investigation into that employer’s labor practices, Gamez this year became eligible for four years of protection from deportation — and a temporary work permit that seemed to open doors overnight. The 51-year-old Hawthorne resident said he can apply for better, stable jobs that pay more and provide benefits. He now has a union-represented position in a college kitchen and a Social Security number to build his credit.

“It changed my life,” he said in Spanish. “It is giving me many job opportunities, to be better financially and to give a better life to my family.”

His opportunities are thanks to a recent federal program that grants temporary legal status to workers involved in certain labor investigations. With some of the nation’s strictest workplace laws but widespread concerns of employer retaliation, California has issued more than 200 requests to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, asking it to grant legal status to workers who report violations.

But just months after Gamez got his reprieve, the program may be on the chopping block: President-elect Donald Trump and his advisors have vowed mass deportations, a return to workplace immigration raids and the repeal of similar temporary protection programs.

Gamez’s attorney, Yvonne Medrano, said she’s expecting the program to be axed soon after Trump takes office Jan. 20. Her firm, the Los Angeles-based Bet Tzedek Legal Services, is no longer pursuing new cases under the program after representing workers seeking protections in 15 different workplace investigations.

“Removing this protection will return workers to a time when they fear deportation for asking for minimum wage, their paychecks or any other protections they have,” Medrano said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents transfer an immigrant after an early morning raid in Duarte on June 6, 2022. Photo by Damian Dovarganes, AP Photo

Other immigration attorneys in California had already stopped filing new applications before Election Day. They said they expect Homeland Security to honor the four-year reprieves that the department has already granted, but are uncertain what happens next.

“This is a discretionary program,” said Jessie Hahn, senior counsel for labor and employment policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group. “We are not anticipating that if Trump were elected he would continue the program.”

A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about his intentions for the program.

It has created another group of immigrants who have been granted temporary permission to be in the United States as the chances of a federal immigration overhaul have grown ever slimmer — making their prospects heavily dependent on the see-saw of each presidential administration.

The program, one of several Biden administration efforts to boost the enforcement of labor laws, aims to give state investigators easier access to witnesses who may otherwise fear reprisal for making workplace complaints.

It’s similar to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that gave work permits and temporary deportation protections to immigrants who had been brought to the U.S. without authorization as children. About 500,000 residents have that form of legal status, but the program has stopped granting new applications after challenges in the federal courts. Trump tried to rescind the program in his last term; Stephen Miller, a close Trump advisor, said he will do so again, the New York Times has reported.

Deferred Action for Labor Enforcement is much narrower — 7,700 workers have benefitted since January 2023. Anyone who’s not a U.S. citizen can apply if they can prove they were working for an employer under investigation. First, a state or federal labor agency must submit a letter to Homeland Security saying they need the cooperation of worker witnesses in each investigation.

Those granted deferred action are shielded from deportation and allowed to work legally for four years, but there is no path toward permanent residency. Some recipients see it as a way to earn money legally and get better-paying jobs outside the underground economy. Others said it gives them time — and a much quicker path to a work permit — as their other immigration-related cases wind their way through the federal bureaucracy.

Immigration attorneys and advocates say while some applicants are seeking reprieves from active deportation cases, most have been living and working without papers undetected, meaning they’ve come forward to federal immigration authorities for the first time.

It’s not clear how many of those workers are in California. A Homeland Security spokesperson would not release state-by-state figures, citing “ongoing investigations.”

But California is an eager participant in the program; Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration says it was the first state to file a letter supporting worker protections. The state is home to nearly 1.5 million workers who are undocumented immigrants, making up more than 7% of the workforce.

Such workers are a frequent focus of the state’s labor investigations, and labor advocates say undocumented workers routinely fear both losing their jobs and being reported to immigration authorities for complaining about workplace violations.

“This fear can prevent them from fully cooperating with labor enforcement agencies in reporting and corroborating violations of the law,” Daniel Lopez, spokesperson for the state Labor Commissioner’s Office, said in a statement. “Ultimately, fewer protections undermine workers and impact responsible employers.”

In the past two years, the office, which investigates wage theft, has sent letters supporting deportation protections in 136 workplace investigations covering potentially hundreds of workers. The Division of Occupational Safety and Health has sent at least 12 letters. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which oversees farmworkers’ rights, has sent 10, and the Civil Rights Department, which investigates workplace discrimination complaints, has sent 60, spokespersons said.

The state has even paid to help immigrants get work permits. Last year, Newsom announced $4.5 million to pay for free legal services to help farmworkers who are involved in labor investigations apply for deferred action. The money, allocated through mid-2026, has so far helped screen more than 500 workers for eligibility and 175 apply for the program.

There are as many as 800,000 seasonal and year-round farmworkers in California; at least half are believed to be undocumented.

“Agricultural regions have very limited access to immigration legal services,” said Jason Montiel, spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, which administers the grant to five legal aid groups statewide. “Providing farmworkers direct access to immigration legal services when their labor rights are violated increases the likelihood that they will file labor claims and collaborate with labor agencies.”

Newsom’s spokespersons did not respond to an inquiry about what will happen with the state grant program if federal rules change.

Nicole Gorney, a supervising attorney with VIDAS Legal Services, which is receiving a state grant, said that she has 12 farmworker clients waiting to be granted deferred action. She had hoped the state would expand the program to include workers in other industries.

“There are still a lot of workers out there who may qualify but really don’t want to come out of the shadows,” she said the morning after the election.

Alejandro Games in his home in Hawthorne on Nov. 8, 2024. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for CalMatters.

Gamez’ deferred action was granted in connection with retaliation claims he and his coworkers filed against Century Car Wash in 2018. That year, they had also filed wage theft claims with the state Labor Commissioner’s Office. According to state records, they told the office their managers made them show up earlier and leave later than the businesses’ opening hours, but their time-sheets didn’t match all the hours they worked. The car wash’s co-owners denied the claims, and told the state the time-sheets were accurate.

After demanding payment from his managers, Gamez said he was fired, and told to leave in front of customers. According to state records, he and his coworkers won the wage claims in 2021; a state hearing officer ruled Gamez was owed more than $20,000. But the state is still investigating claims the workers were fired and questioned about their immigration status in retaliation for speaking up. Last year at Gamez’ attorney’s request, the Labor Commissioner’s Office sent a letter to Homeland Security to request deportation protection for the workers.

“The ongoing investigation … is being conducted by our Retaliation Complaint Investigation unit and requires worker cooperation and testimony,” Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower wrote in the letter.

Reached by phone, one of Century Car Wash’s owners deferred to the co-owner, who did not respond to a request for comment.

Gamez said his deferred action status kept him calm last week as many immigrants feared for their futures under a second Trump administration.

“Removing this protection will return workers to a time when they fear deportation for asking for minimum wage, their paychecks or any other protections they have.”

Yvonne Medrano of Bet Tzedek Legal Services in los Angeles

Others who received the protection remain afraid.

Alejandra Montoya came to the United States five years ago fleeing “problems in the family,” she said, and found work in the Central Valley’s fields. She had a degree in business administration in her native Mexico, and said she never intended to be an undocumented immigrant. But she had a son, and stayed to raise him in Bakersfield.

Montoya said she enjoys farm work, despite the hard days on her hands and knees picking and bunching carrots for $3.05 per box. On a good day, when the field conditions are forgiving, she can take home $150 or more, she said.

Working for a contractor hired by Grimmway Farms, she said she kept her head down, until one day last September when a coworker, Rosa Sanchez, was struck by a truck and killed in the field next to hers. Montoya said workers had raised concerns about that driver and she believed the accident was preventable. Some of the workers were told to keep working around Sanchez’ body, she said. Stunned, and now knowing what else to do, she did.

It was “traumatic,” she said through a translator. “Inhumane.”

In March, the state’s workplace safety agency issued more than $65,000 of citations against Grimmway, the contractor Esparza Enterprises and another contractor that employed the driver, alleging serious safety violations for allowing employees to work “in close proximity to a Commercial Truck being driven in an unsafe manner,” according to files obtained through a public records request. Federal and state records show the driver was backing up when the truck struck Sanchez.

The company and its contractors have contested the citations. Esparza did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement, Grimmway spokesperson Dana Brennan wrote the company has strict policies prohibiting retaliation against employees or contractors’ employees who report issues at work.

“We have a confidential, anonymous, bilingual hotline where employees can report ethical concerns,” Brennan wrote. “As we have since we first learned of this tragic accident, we are committed to working with authorities throughout their investigation and extend our deepest sympathies to Ms. Sanchez’s family and her co-workers on this grievous loss.”

As a potential witness to the accident, Montoya applied for deferred action with the help of the United Farm Workers, and has since become more active with the organization, encouraging coworkers to apply and speaking at a union convention in September.

The day after the election, she said she’s both relieved she got her work permit this year and fearful that she’s given her information to federal immigration authorities. In the fields, most of the workers were talking about Trump’s victory, “about what will happen with us now.”

“It protects us from deportation,” she said of the program. “Even so, the fear exists … Whenever he wants, he can take it away.”