Are undocumented immigrants entitled to workers’ compensation benefits in Nebraska?
Recently, the Kansas Supreme Court examined the same question that has been previously answered by the Nebraska courts.
The short answer is, yes. Undocumented workers are entitled to most workers’ compensation benefits under Nebraska law. The exception is that undocumented immigrants are not entitled to the vocational rehabilitation benefit because the worker is not legally permitted to be in the country.
To some people, Nebraska law and this Kansas decision make sense, but unfortunately many people believe that undocumented workers should not be entitled to work comp. This argument fails for the following reasons:
- If someone is injured at work and needs to seek medical treatment, it must be paid somehow. If it is not paid by workers’ compensation (even though the injury occurred at work), the cost of that treatment will be passed to the medical providers and the general-public. The employer will get away scot-free while everyone else would share the burden of mounting healthcare costs.
- Employers should not get a benefit of hiring undocumented workers over citizens or documented workers. As stated above, if the employer does not have to pay workers’ compensation benefits for an injured, undocumented worker, the employer will be encouraged to hire undocumented workers over others as cost-savings. It is the employer’s responsibility to hire documented workers, but if it means the cost-savings of not having to pay work comp benefits, you can bet that employer will try to hire undocumented workers over others.
- Similar to the previous reason, employers would be discouraged from taking safety measures to ensure the safety of its workers if it knows that it won’t be required to pay for undocumented workers’ injuries. This would make the workplace more dangerous for all workers.
- Regardless of citizenship, an injured worker has an inalienable right to be treated for work injuries simply based on the fact that his/her job has made money for that employer. This is the whole point of the workers’ compensation system: to provide a quick (relatively speaking) and efficient way to get medical treatment and compensation for any worker that is injured while making money for that employer. Without the beneficiary of the work that cause the injury being required to pay work comp, this burden would inevitably be pushed to tax payers in one form or another. In other words, taxpayers should certainly want undocumented immigrants to get workers’ compensation benefits.
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