I'll be the first to concede that stealing from another is wrong. But when someone is engaged in illegal activity for money, it is pretty hard for me to get overly outraged when they get ripped off by the other party to the illegal transaction.

Now an ongoing epidemic of wage theft from immigrant laborers reflects the many ways that a dysfunctional immigration system robs us all.

According to a recent Chronicle story, reports of Houston-area employers refusing to pay immigrants for their work doubled from 2006 to 2007. The U.S. Department of Labor's office here received 842 complaints of businesses stealing back pay in 2006, compared to 371 in 2005. There were 172 in 2004. The department does not investigate complaints against individual employers. Nationally, almost half of all day labors reported being robbed by employers in a two-month period, according to a 2006 survey.

Reports of stolen wages probably account for only a small portion of wage thefts. As about 75 percent of day laborers are undocumented, many shy from complaining to authorities. Because they are low-income workers supporting impoverished families, they often cannot afford to lose precious work hours trying to file charges.

Even so, for those immigrant laborers who came forward last year, the Labor Department recovered $475,000 owed to 453 workers.

I have mixed emotions here. I think employers who rip off workers are scum -- especially having been in such a situation early in my working career. But at the same time, we are talking about folks who are in the country illegally and not working legally -- the transactions they are involved in are illegal from start to finish. Isn't getting ripped off just a part of the price you pay for being a part of a criminal enterprise?

Are those who file such complaints also turned over to immigration authorities for deportation? I think we all know the answer there. Any change in immigration law needs to require that they are.

Or are the feds going to now help folks recover stolen drugs and drug money, and not prosecute the underlying crime?

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