On May 10, 2017, a Boston wall taper who had broken his leg in a fall from a ladder during work six weeks earlier took his two-year-old son to an office of a West Bridgewater, Mass.-based contractor, on the invitation of the CEO who asked him to come and gave the worker $500 to help him get by while recovering.

A few minutes later, after the craft worker left the office on crutches and started to drive away, federal immigration police pulled him over, apprehended him for questioning and held him in custody for two weeks.

对老板办公室和逮捕的呼吁似乎已经协调。

美国劳工举报人部调查员在得知波士顿广播电台报告中发生的事情后，代表锥形乔斯·马丁·帕兹·弗洛雷斯（JoséMartinPaz Flores）在该城市的联邦法院提起诉讼。民事诉讼指控承包商塔拉建筑公司的首席执行官佩德罗·皮雷斯（Pedro Pirez）安排逮捕帕斯·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）的逮捕，导致美国职业安全与健康管理局得知他的事故。

Last week, a jury ordered the contractor and its CEO to pay $650,000 in damages to Paz Flores, most of it punitive.

The department and OSHA hailed the verdict as a strike against employers intimidating vulnerable undocumented workers, saying that Tara and Pirez deliberately triggered events leading to Paz Flores' arrest.

对美国“不会容忍报复nst employees who complain of workplace abuses, including when an employer seeks to use an employee's perceived immigration status as a way to intimidate workers," said Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda in a statement after the verdict.

Pirez attorney Daniel Dwyer said the jury made a bad decision, issuing a statement that there was “strong legal basis for overturning the verdict” and that an appeal was possible.

The controversy over what actually happened touches on several immigration and construction hot buttons involving the demographic surge of Hispanics in construction. One is the Biden administration's attempt to prioritize deportations of undocumented immigrants who pose crime or security threats. A federal judge in Texas recently struck down that approach, saying the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. could not distinguish among the different types of immigration violations in prioritizing arrests.

Biden's Deportation Priorities

Another hot button is the Labor Dept.'s aim to protect undocumented workers from exploitation by employers.2017年，在特朗普政府期间，帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）案似乎为保护参与OSHA安全调查的驱逐出境移民提供了先例。但是，两年后，当特朗普政府期间，新奥尔良一家硬岩咖啡馆酒店的致命2019年中期建设崩溃时，这一先例并没有提高。《纽约时报》报道.

Jacquelyn Pavilon and Vicky Virgin, scholars who co-authored最近的研究新利luck纽约市的移民建筑工人写道，移民，尤其是无证件的移民“容易受到剥削和危险条件”。

但是似乎很少有人发现雇主实际上参与促进逮捕和可能驱逐工人的情况。

A perplexing question hanging over the Paz Flores case is how a small certified minority-owned contractor, itself started by a Latino immigrant who operates using union labor, dealt with the Honduran taper who entered the U.S. illegally in 2000. Abuses of undocumented workers can take many forms—but threat of deportation is said to be most effective.

这个故事是complicated.

根据他的律师德威尔的一份声明，佩德罗·皮雷斯（Pedro Pirez帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）situation."

Tara Construction, a framing, siding, roofing and finish carpentry contractor, is certified by the U.S. Small Business Administration and has over the years "employed thousands of immigrants," Dwyer stated.

皮雷斯在公司网站上说：“将您公司的业务掌握在我们手中，我们将其视为我们自己的业务。”

When Paz Flores fell, workers at the scene called 911, bringing Boston Fire Dept. and Boston Emergency Medical Service personnel to his aid—after which fire officials notified OSHA's regional office, which opened an injury investigation.

After the accident Pirez visited the hospital where Paz Flores was being treated for a broken femur. Required surgery would keep Paz Flores out of work for months. But AmGuard Insurance Co., Tara Construction's workers' compensation insurer, had just that day cut off coverage because of a late payment from the firm.

What happened during Pirez' hospital visit with Paz Flores is disputed.

The Labor Dept. stated that Pirez asked Paz Flores questions relating to immigration status.根据2017年由迈克尔•Mabee沉积n OSHA whistleblower investigator for the region, Paz Flores said Pirez asked him whether he missed his family in Honduras, and about passports. The CEO then mentioned something about his own trips to Cuba.

Paz Flores asked Pirez for help, the Labor Dept. stated. According to Dwyer,多年来，皮雷斯一直对工人进行治疗”充满同情心和慷慨。”塔拉（Tara Construction）向其保险代理人报告了伤害，后者将工业事故事故通知了州部，塔拉声称它已适当记录了其OSHA表格300的不幸。塔拉声称联邦机构关闭了对事件的调查。.

In the aftermath of the accident, Tara Construction and Pirez noticed that Paz Flores had used slightly different names in previous times he had worked for the company. With a stolen Social Security number and false permanent resident card presented to the company, Paz Flores identified himself as “Martin Paz.”

Tara Construction and Pirez never told the hospital where Paz Flores was being treated that the firm's insurance had lapsed the day prior to the accident, the Labor Dept. claimed.

In early April, Pirez conveyed his doubts about Paz Flores' suspected fraud to a relative who worked for the Boston Police Dept., providing him with the construction worker's green card information. The officer's colleague contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which involved numerous phone calls between either police or agency personnel and the contractor that led to Paz Flores' arrest, according to evidence at the recently completed trial.

非营利性广播电台WBUR了解到Paz Flores的被捕，并在车站网站上展示了他的照片。它的storynoted that Paz Flores and his wife, also an undocumented immigrant, had five children. The story featured photos of Paz Flores with his face partially obscured.

在审判中，劳工部律师在审判中说服陪审团说服陪审团触发了帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）被移民执法人员逮捕帕兹·弗洛雷斯和断腿。

The department termed the actions as retaliation, hinting that Pirez wanted to keep the accident out of Tara Construction's OSHA log. Paz Flores' employment status—he is believed to be a union member paid $22 an hour—were part of the trial evidence.

在WBUR的故事中，帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）谈到了皮雷斯（Pirez）的待遇。

"Yeah, I do feel like I was betrayed by my employer," he is quoted as saying. "All I did was try to work to earn a living and I wasn't looking for anything extra."

Gang violence, he told WBUR, had driven both he and his wife to leave Honduras, and it is too dangerous to return.

OSHA Accuses Pirez of Lies

OSHA, which interviewed Pirez as part of its investigation, claimed that he "lied and attempted to mislead OSHA about his actions." The Labor Dept's legal team argued during the weeklong trial that Pirez facilitated the arrest of Paz Flores, and that the meeting to give him the $500 was a pretext to lure him to where he could be easily apprehended.

In addition to giving the department shifting and misleading statements about what happened, its attorneys accused Pirez of failing to fully verify Paz Flores' immigration documentation, treating differently employees who lacked that documentation and having "a history of underreporting injuries" to OSHA and its workers' compensation insurer.

这些指控不能由ENR独立验证。新利luckOSHA记录显示，塔拉（Tara）建筑定下了由帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）的梯子事故对奥萨（Osha）施加的适度罚款。锥度在州法院分别起诉该建筑公司，达成和解。

帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）immigration attorney did not return a phone call seeking comment on his immigration status.

Dwyer and Tara Construction entered evidence to show that events leading to the arrest of Paz Flores and ICE's decision to take that action were the inadvertent result of Pirez' confusion and concern over the worker's multiple names and falsified social security number and ID card.

Pirez became concerned that Paz Flores' aliases might cause trouble for Tara Construction, although he could not say how, his attorney argued. Pirez thought that a good first step would be to learn the worker's real name, which prompted the CEO to contact his police officer cousin.

皮雷斯（Pirez）“需要知道帕兹·弗洛雷斯（Paz Flores）的真实姓名，因为医院正在敦促信息，而且他永远不会预见到会发生什么，”他的律师德威说。“佩德罗·皮雷斯（Pedro Pirez）被这一切陷入困境真是悲惨。虽然他尊重陪审团，但他知道这误判了他。”