Protecting Your Rights: California Expands Protections Against Immigration-Related Retaliation Under AB 2495

Advocating about your pay, your schedule, or your workplace safety should never put your immigration status on the line. Yet, the unfortunate reality is that some employers attempt to silence an employee’s complaints by threatening or weaponizing a worker’s perceived immigration status. It is a severe tactic designed to keep workers quiet – and California law explicitly outlaws it.

To crack down on this practice, California enacted Assembly Bill 2495, which takes effect on January 1, 2027. AB 2495 significantly broadens workplace protections, making it clear that threats, harassment, or retaliation tied to immigration status will carry heavy consequences. However, you do not have to wait until the new law takes effect to seek help because the existing law under Labor Code Section 1019 already prohibits these retaliatory acts when used against employees asserting their rights under the Labor Code or local ordinances.

What changes on January 1, 2027?

While California’s existing Labor Code Section 1019 already prohibits certain immigration-related retaliatory tactics, AB 2495 expands those safeguards in critical ways:

• Broader Protection of Rights: The new text covers “any right protected under any local, state, or federal statute or regulation applicable to employees,” in place of the Labor Code and local ordinances.
• Covering “Attempts”: Retaliating against a worker for simply attempting to exercise a legal right is now explicitly prohibited.
• Pre-emptive Pressure: Subdivision (b) is new. Employers can’t use subtle intimidation tactics to keep an employee quiet, either. The law now outlaws any conduct tied to an employee’s perceived immigration status that would “reasonably tend to dissuade” them from asserting their workplace rights in the first place.
• Actual Status Is Irrelevant: Under the statute, a worker’s actual or perceived immigration status has no bearing on liability. State-law protections apply regardless of status.
• Heavier Civil Penalties. Violators face civil penalties of up to $10,000 per employee for each violation, payable directly to the affected worker, alongside other legal remedies.
• Who Counts as an Employee: The law explicitly includes job applicants, current employees, and former employees.

What Practices Are Prohibited?

As amended by AB 2495, Section 1019 contains two distinct prohibitions:

• Retaliation through listed practices, subdivision (a). An employer or any other person or entity may not use an “unfair immigration-related practice” against any person, or direct someone else to use one, for the purpose of, or with the intent of, retaliating against any person for exercising or attempting to exercise a protected right.
• Other conduct tied to perceived status, subdivision (b). An employer or any other person may not engage in “any other conduct, related to any person’s perceived immigration status, that would reasonably tend to dissuade a person” from using a right under a local, state or federal statute or regulation applicable to employees, or to induce a person to do something such a law lets them refuse.

AB 2495 maintains and reinforces strict prohibitions against unfair immigration-related practices used to retaliate or intimidate, including:

• Abusing Work Documents. Asking for more or different documents than federal employment-verification law requires, or rejecting documents that on their face reasonably appear to be genuine.
• Misusing E-Verify. Using E-Verify outside of times or manners required by federal law or authorized agreements.
• False reports. Threatening to file—or actually filing—false police reports or false complaints with government agencies.
• Threatening Immigration Contact. Threatening to contact or contacting immigration authorities to intimidate a worker.

An important note on federal exception:

Conduct undertaken at the express and specific direction or request of the federal government falls outside the definition of an unfair immigration-related practice.

Remedies and Other Statutory Protections

Existing statutory remedies carry over under AB 2495. Employees or their representatives may bring a civil action for equitable relief (court orders), statutory damages, civil penalties, and reasonable attorney’s fees and expert witness costs. Additionally, courts retain the power to suspend an employer’s business license for up to 14 days for a first violation, 30 days for a second violation, and 90 days for subsequent violations.

Under subdivision (g), Section 1019 operates alongside all other local, state, or federal protections. Workers subjected to retaliation may also pursue cumulative claims under statutes like Labor Code 98.6 and Section 1102.5.

Key Facts and Evidence

• What You Did and the 90-Day Presumption: The initial complaint or disclosure must be made in good faith. If an adverse practice occurs within 90 days of an employee exercising a right, the law presumes it was unlawful retaliation unless the employer proves otherwise.
• What Was Said or Done: Subdivision (b) reaches “any other conduct” tied to perceived immigration status. The core question is whether the conduct would reasonably tend to dissuade an employee from asserting their rights.
• Third-Party & Family Threats: Threats made against a worker’s family members are actionable. Under Labor Code Section 244, reporting or threatening to report a family member’s citizenship or immigration status constitutes an illegal adverse action.
• Your Own Immigration Status: You don’t have to prove any particular immigration status. Section 1171.5 makes state-law protections available regardless of immigration status, except any reinstatement remedy federal law prohibits. Under Salas v. Sierra Chemical Co. (2014) 59 Cal.4th 407, federal law also limits lost pay for the period after an employer learns a worker was not authorized to work. Section 1171.5 also bars inquiry into a person’s status in proceedings or discovery to enforce state labor and employment laws, unless the person asking shows by clear and convincing evidence that the inquiry is necessary to comply with federal immigration law.
• Evidence to Preserve: Keep personal, dated records of texts, emails, voicemails, notes of who was present, pay records, and copies of any initial complaints or requests made to management.

What should you do next?

If you are facing immigration-related threats, document the details immediately and keep your records somewhere your employer cannot access. Consult an attorney before signing statements, submitting extra documents, or resigning under pressure. If a public agency is involved, you need to act as quickly as possible keeping in mind the deadline discussed above.

How can Java & Jebreil help?

If someone at work used your immigration status, or what they assumed about it, to punish or silence you, you don’t have to face it alone. Java & Jebreil can talk with you about what happened and what to expect at each stage. Call (424) 600-7678 or write to us through our contact page.

The firm represents California employees in workplace retaliation, discrimination and harassment, wrongful termination and wage and hour matters. Our post on California’s Know Your Rights notice explains the annual notice that covers unfair immigration-related practices.