Bill would deny aid to illegal immigrants

Despite a lack of public support from business, labor groups or others, House Republicans approved a bill on Tuesday that would block injured undocumented immigrants from filing workers’-compensation claims.

But the bill, passed largely along party lines, is likely to find tough sledding in the Senate, where Republican leaders wonder if the proposal would actually encourage businesses to hire more undocumented workers.

The proposal saw a feisty House debate that included Rep. Dan Ramos, D-Lorain, the state’s longest-serving Latino officeholder, criticizing the use of the word “illegals” and arguing that, regardless of intention, the bill could be perceived as racist.

Meanwhile, Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, a prime sponsor of the bill, said using the term “undocumented immigrant” is “sort of like calling drug dealers undocumented pharmacists.”

Trump-like overtones also permeated the debate. Rep. Larry Householder, R-Glenford, the other prime sponsor, named it the Ohio Workers First Act “because it’s high time in the state of Ohio that we put Ohioans first.”

Householder argued that current law incentivizes “rogue businesses” to hire undocumented, low-wage workers because if those workers get hurt, treatment costs become the responsibility of the state workers’-compensation system.

Supporters say House Bill 380 would allow injured workers who are undocumented to sue the company if they can prove that the owners hired them knowing they were undocumented. “That’s the great incentive in this legislation,” Householder said.

But critics, and even the nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission, question whether undocumented immigrants would use the court system for such a lawsuit.

Rep. John Boccieri, D-Poland, said the bill would provide a shield for businesses that hire undocumented workers and then force hospitals, health-care plans and citizens to pay when those workers are injured, saying that hospitals pass on the costs of indigent care.

Seitz argued that Medicaid — or the worker, if not indigent — would pay the medical costs.

Employer premiums fund the workers’-compensation program.

No group testified in committee in support of the bill.

The bill “is a cheap political stunt that will increase the number of undocumented workers hired in Ohio because employers’ workers’-compensation costs are determined

by the number of claims filed,” said Rep. David Leland, D-Columbus.

Groups including the ACLU of Ohio, the Catholic Conference of Ohio, the Ohio AFL-CIO and trial lawyers oppose the bill.

The Catholic Church wants reforms to address the country’s broken immigration system, said Jim Tobin, associate director of the Catholic Conference. “Yet, once undocumented immigrants are here and working, their human dignity itself should guarantee basic compensation and protections for the work they provide.”

Under the bill, injured workers would have to certify to the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation that they are authorized to work in this country. If an undocumented worker filed a fraudulent claim, it would not be paid.

Supporters say the bill is consistent with the denial of

unemployment compensation.

The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation does not have data related to payments for undocumented workers, and the Legislative Service Commission said it could not estimate how much the bill would reduce benefit payments. The insurance fund in 2016 paid $580 million in medical benefits and $1 billion in lost-time benefits.

The House passed a similar measure earlier this year as part of the state Bureau of Workers’ Compensation budget, but the Senate removed it before final passage.

“One of the primary concerns was that it would actually not work the way it is intended to and could incentivize people to hire illegal immigrants,” Senate President Larry Obhof, R-Medina, said Tuesday.

Obhof will get a look at the issue again after the 62-30 House vote on Tuesday; all Republicans voted for it, as did two Cleveland Democrats.

Asked if anyone had raised this workers’-compensation issue with him, Obhof said only that “Rep. Seitz has talked about it for about a decade.”

Sen. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, said he strongly opposes illegal immigration and wants to see more of a crackdown, but he also questions whether this bill would work, and he noted that no group has raised the issue with him.

“If an employer is paying a workers’-compensation premium on (an undocumented worker), that seems to make more sense to have the treatment covered there, as opposed to them going into emergency rooms in indigentcare situations,” Hottinger said.