Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB

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Two years after Sure-Tan, Congress enacted IRCA, a comprehensive scheme that made combating the employment of illegal aliens in the United States central to the policy of immigration law. INS v. National Center for Immigrants’ Rights, Inc., 502 U.S. 183, 194, and n. 8. Among other things, IRCA established an extensive “employment verification system,” 8 U.S.C. § 1324a(a)(1), designed to deny employment to aliens who (a) are not lawfully present in the United States, or (b) are not lawfully authorized to work in the United States, §1324a(h)(3). It also makes it a crime for an unauthorized alien to subvert the employer verification system by tendering fraudulent documents, §1324c(a), an offense that Castro committed when obtaining employment with petitioner. Thus, allowing the Board to award backpay to illegal aliens would unduly trench upon explicit statutory prohibitions critical to federal immigration policy. It would encourage the successful evasion of apprehension by immigration authorities, condone prior violations of the immigration laws, and encourage future violations. However broad the Board’s discretion to fashion remedies when dealing only with the NLRA, it is not so unbounded as to authorize this sort of an award. Lack of authority to award backpay does not mean that the employer gets off scot free. The Board here has already imposed other significant sanctions against petitioner, including orders that it cease and desist its NLRA violations and conspicuously post a notice detailing employees’ rights and its prior unfair practices, which are sufficient to effectuate national labor policy regardless of whether backpay accompanies them.

237 F.3d 639, reversed.

Local effect:

The decision is consistent with the Seventh Circuit decision in Del Rey Tortilleria, Inc. v. NLRB, 976 F.2d 705 (7th Cir. 1992).

Rehnquist, C. J.; Breyer, J., dissenting.