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A Washington construction coTpany hired undocumented workers and when the job was finished they called ICE on the workers so they didnt have to pay. true or false
Executive Summary
The claim is partly accurate but overstated: there are documented incidents of U.S. construction and roofing employers hiring workers lacking legal authorization and later triggering immigration enforcement, but reporting that a Washington construction company systematically “called ICE on the workers so they didn’t have to pay” is not fully supported by the available evidence. Public reporting confirms a Bellingham roofing employer was the site of an ICE workplace operation that detained dozens of workers, and a separate Massachusetts jury found a construction firm had reported an injured worker to immigration authorities to avoid paying compensation, but none of the reviewed sources directly show a Washington employer openly phoned ICE after finishing a job to evade wage payments [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. A Bellingham raid happened — what is documented and what is not
Reporting from spring 2025 describes an ICE enforcement action at a Bellingham roofing company that resulted in the arrest of 37 people, establishing that an employer in Washington was central to a large immigration enforcement event [1]. Follow-up reporting indicated the company—identified locally—was aware of an impending enforcement action and had not used E-Verify, a detail reporters framed as relevant to the company’s hiring practices and potential motive to pay lower wages; however, these articles do not contain evidence that the employer proactively called ICE to trigger the raid as a tactic to avoid payment obligations [2]. The public record in those pieces stops short of showing a deliberate employer-initiated report to ICE designed principally to evade paying wages.
2. A Massachusetts jury verdict shows a related pattern of retaliation
In a separate, well-documented 2022 case in Massachusetts, a construction company named Tara Construction was found by a jury to have reported an injured worker, José Martin Paz Flores, to immigration authorities after he sought workers’ compensation—an act the jury concluded was retaliation intended to avoid payment obligations. The company was ordered to pay $650,000, and legal filings and reporting characterize the reporting as retaliation connected to an effort to deny compensation [3] [4]. That verdict demonstrates a recognized legal theory—employers sometimes exploit immigration enforcement to punish or avoid obligations—but it occurred in Boston, not Washington, and involved workers’ compensation rather than routine final wages.
3. Other Washington cases show exploitative practices but not the exact allegation
Additional Washington-focused reporting reviewed here addresses labor abuses—such as underpayment, unsafe conditions, and use of unlicensed contractors—but none of these pieces corroborate the exact sequence in the original statement (hire undocumented workers, finish the job, then call ICE to avoid payment). For example, reporting about farm labor contractors, detainee labor pay disputes, and migrant brush picker cases documents systemic vulnerabilities and enforcement gaps that create opportunities for employer abuse, but they do not prove a documented incident in Washington where an employer deliberately summoned ICE solely to evade wage payment [5] [6] [7].
4. How to interpret the pattern: plausible tactic, limited direct proof in WA
The combination of the Bellingham raid and the Massachusetts jury verdict establishes a pattern in which employers have both employed unauthorized workers and in at least one adjudicated instance used immigration reporting as retaliation to avoid paying compensation. From these facts, it is plausible for observers to infer that some employers might exploit immigration enforcement to shirk wage obligations; however, plausibility is not the same as documented fact for the specific Washington claim. The available Washington reporting shows enforcement happened at an employer site and raises questions about hiring practices, but it does not demonstrate the causal act alleged—making the broader statement an overgeneralization beyond the verified record [1] [2] [4].
5. Bottom line: truth claim needs calibration and further evidence
The strongest, evidence-based conclusion is that the claim is partly true in the sense that there are confirmed cases of employers hiring undocumented workers and some employers reporting workers to immigration authorities in retaliation or to avoid obligations—but the specific allegation that a Washington construction company hired undocumented workers and then called ICE after the job to avoid paying them is not fully substantiated by the cited coverage. To upgrade the claim from plausible to proven, investigators or reporting would need to produce contemporaneous documents, employer statements, or legal findings showing the employer initiated the immigration contact expressly to escape wage or final-payment obligations in Washington [1] [2] [3] [4].