Spectrum News NY1: Manhattan prosecutors concerned immigration crackdown deterring wage theft victims from coming forward

By Ayana Harry

Aug. 29, 2025

Rachana Pathak has built a career fighting for New Yorkers who often live in the shadows, including undocumented workers.

“These are day laborers, these are construction workers, these are pizza workers who don’t have papers,” Pathak explained during an interview with NY1.

Pathak runs the Worker Protection Unit in the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. The lawyers investigate allegations of wage theft and employee exploitation.

In the midst of the current immigration crackdown, the unit has found connecting with those in need has become increasingly difficult.

“There are inherent power imbalances in the type of work we do. The fear is real, and the employers prey on that fear. They don’t imagine that a lot of these workers are going to have the courage to come into a DA’s office and meet with prosecutors and be in court, so they take advantage of that,” Pathak said.

Many cases investigated by the unit begin with a phone call to their hotline, but Pathak says, recently, the phone just hasn’t been ringing.

“The numbers have dropped tremendously, steeply,” she said. “We used to get several complaints every week. Now we get a couple of complaints a month.”

Pathak says the level of fear over immigration enforcement hasn’t just kept exploited workers from reporting wage theft. It has also kept some from collecting the money they’re owed.

“I have two checks that are in our safe. We’ve called the witnesses to say, ‘Hi, we have money for you’, and they have not called us back for the past month, so I think they’re gone. And that’s just a really sad, sort of tragic part of this, of what’s going on right now,” Pathak said.

Since its creation in 2023, the Worker Protection Unit has pursued cases against Manhattan companies accused of failing to pay employees, including a talent agency, construction companies and even the famed Grimaldi’s Pizzeria.

The unit has brought 11 prosecutions and recovered $1.3 million in stolen wages for more than 50 workers. But so much of what they investigate relies on people being willing to speak up about workplace abuse.

The unit is now focused on building cases with the help of community groups as they work to make sure the public knows they do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.