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Illegal Aliens and Illinois Workers' Compensation Benefits
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The Illinois Workers' Compensation Act, when defining an employee who is eligible for compensation, provides:
"Every person in the service of another under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, including persons whose employment is outside of the State of Illinois where the contract of hire is made within the State of Illinois, persons whose employment results in fatal or non-fatal injuries within the State of Illinois where the contract of hire is made outside of the State of Illinois, and persons whose employment is principally localized within the State of Illinois, regardless of the place of the accident or the place where the contract of hire was made, and including aliens, and minors who, for the purpose of this Act are considered the same and have the same power to contract, receive payments and give quittances therefore, as adult employees."
While the statute does expressly include aliens as employees eligible to receive compensation, it does not differentiate between illegal and legal aliens. Based on how we have seen Arbitrator's rule in numerous workers' compensation cases, while the law is not clearly defined on this issue in Illinois, we do believe that if an illegal alien got hurt on the job, he/she would be entitled to workers' compensation benefits.
We think Illinois courts would most likely state that they don't want to reward employers for their illegal hiring nor do they want to create case law that would encourage the hiring of illegal aliens. We also don't think that the courts would let someone who was legitimately injured while working be denied medical treatment.
It is worth noting that illegal aliens do receive less than citizens if they die on the job and realistically speaking, an illegal alien would have a much harder time receiving benefits in a disputed case than would a citizen. Most illegal aliens would not want to be in a position where they would have to testify that they were illegally working.
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